


Of Disheveled Warlocks and Equanimous Threats

by CounterfeitBravado



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe- Hogwarts, F/F, Friends to Lovers, I got a bit irritated writing it tbh, Internalized Homophobia, Slow Burn, very slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2018-12-22 15:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11970036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CounterfeitBravado/pseuds/CounterfeitBravado
Summary: Maggie jerks her head to the open window but Alex can’t-- can’t tear her gaze away when the wind picks up and plays with Maggie’s hair, can’t tear her gaze away when Maggie’s form slacks and leans her head against Alex’s shoulders, can’t tear her gaze away from how the moonlight casts an ethereal glow around them. And suddenly, she can’t wait any longer, not when, during this rollercoaster of mystery of a year, she’s been so sure of one thing-- of Maggie.Maggie turns to her just then, gives her a smile that has her dimples popping out, and Alex is absolutely, irretrievably lost.She kisses her. The action in and of itself sparks something bigger than the initial feeling.Every part of her hums with energy, hums with elation, hums with warm electricity that spreads everywhere in her body and Alex swears she’s addicted already./ /In which Alex Danvers attends Hogwarts and learns a little something about magic.





	1. First Year / / 2000-2001

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's September 1st, 2017 today. The final return to Hogwarts, the final scene of the final book. My childhood is over. I am a woman now. And it's not okay...
> 
> But anywho, to commemorate this momentous occasion, have some words! The Harry Potter fandom and Sanvers have literally changed my life- so here's my little thanks. Tell me what y'all think.

She first notices Maggie Sawyer her first year at Hogwarts.

 

How can she not when the fierce eleven-year old runs, barreling in front of her, shielding Alex from the crosshairs of third-years who might as well be double her height?

 

Her house robes wave slightly after her, coming to a rest below the ankle of the girl’s boots, just short of scuffing the pavement. Alex can’t see her face, so she focuses instead on the deep gold that peeks from the back of the girl’s hood, thankful to tear her eyes away from the menacing gaze of the group of her older housemates.

 

“Leave her alone,” the girl in front of her demands, her high-pitched voice doing nothing to lessen the threat in her tone- a tone that Alex would hate if it were directed at her. The girl stands with her feet apart, hands resting on her hips.

 

Alex can see the confusion in the opposite party, the three Slytherins in front of them exchange furrowed eyebrows before their expressions morph into similar leers of sick amusement.

 

The girl leading the offense, Veronica Sinclair, brandishing green and black as a weapon (the same green and black that Alex was trying to desperately use as armor), makes a show of bending to the height of the small Hufflepuff in front of Alex. Her fellow tormentors snicker at the action.

 

“Come on now, short stack, we’re just having a bit of fun.”

 

Alex wants to tell the girl in front of her to back off, that she could take care of herself, that she’s more than willing to-- but the words refuse to leave her body. Instead, she grasps at fistfuls of her robe, her hands shaking from anger (anger that she can’t stand up for herself, that she can’t stand up for this girl in front of her) as she averts her gaze and finds fascination in a loose thread of her tie.

 

The girl seems to puff herself up at the comment, crossing her arms in front of her and tilting her chin up though she said nothing in response. A moment of silence passes, and Alex could almost see how the emotion in Veronica’s eyes shifts before the third-year scoffs, the smirk never leaving her face as she straightens up, her eyes flitting between the Hufflepuff and Alex.

 

The older Slytherin makes a small noise of intrigue.

 

Alex wonders what Veronica saw, what the girl in front of her was doing because whatever it was had Veronica turning her back and slowly walking away. Her friends stare after her in shock, their previously threatening stances breaking.

 

She pauses a few feet away, and with a tilt of her head, her groupies break their shocked expressions (one’s that seemed to be exactly identical to that adorning Alex’s) and turn to follow her. The boy with curly hair and a bruised eye, who had flanked Veronica, glares slightly at the two first-years before stalking off.

 

The girl in front of her keeps her stance for a moment longer, only relaxing when their tormentors had disappeared around the corner. She turns to face Alex.

 

Alex finds herself staring at a pair of soft brown eyes and a dimpled smile, and suddenly it was made very clear why Veronica had turned away.

 

“You okay?” She asks— tone too light and jovial for the situation that had occurred.

 

Alex blinks in response, still in shock (and really, quite confused) at what had just happened.

 

The girl’s smile disappears with Alex’s silence, and all Alex wants to do is find the right combination of words to bring it back again.

 

The girl tilts her head, eyebrows furrowing slightly. Her voice was soft, “They’re gone now, you don’t have to be scared anymore.”

 

Distracted by her voice and her eyes and her dimples and the damn wind that picks up and wafts over the most amazing scent, Alex mumbles out her response.

 

“I... I wasn’t scared.”

 

It wasn’t even a lie… Sort of. After all, it wasn’t herself she was scared for— but Alex doesn't think that’s what the girl is implying.

 

The girl grins at her words, and Alex has to fist her hands at her sides to stop herself from poking at her dimples.

 

“Right. Sorry. Just me then,” She shrugs.

 

Alex takes a shaky breath in. The girl extends her hand.

 

“I’m Maggie Sawyer.”

 

Alex takes Maggie’s hand in her own, “Alex Danvers.”

 

Maggie makes a small noise of delighted surprise.

 

“You’re the girl that caused the hatstall at the start of the term.”

 

Maggie shakes her hand before releasing it with a small squeeze.

 

“What class you have right now, Alex?”

 

“I, uh, I have h-herbology.”

 

“Looks like we already have something in common then.”

 

The halls are beginning to fill with people, the previously slow trickle gone as lunch nears an end.

 

Maggie nudges Alex forward with her shoulder,  “Come on, let’s go.”

 

“You don’t have to walk me to class,” Alex’s voice takes a significantly harder tone. After all, she's a Slytherin. She doesn't need some Hufflepuff defending her. Or, at least, she shouldn’t. Maggie doesn’t even looked fazed.

 

“I’m not, Alex. _You’re_ walking _me_ to class,” Maggie reiterates, as if it was obvious.

 

Alex blinks in surprise, her recently built bravado disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared with the words of the girl in front of her.

 

“…Sorry?”

 

“We just faced a bunch of third-years and you didn’t even get scared. Why wouldn’t I want to associate someone like that with myself?” Her tone is half teasing, the other part completely sincere.

 

Alex stares (gapes) at the brunette, studying her with no foreseeable outlook of an easy conclusion.

 

“Come on,” Maggie grabs her hand, and suddenly, Alex finds another thing she couldn’t quite tear her gaze away from. “We’ll be late for class.”

 

/ /

 

The pair walk into their first Herbology lesson, an introductory welcome from the Professor and a rundown of the curriculum, and Alex leaves with a newfound hatred for flora.

 

Maggie, on the other hand, who had sat next to Alex just short of bouncing throughout the entire lesson, was radiating excitement.

 

She rattles off the list of things she can’t possibly wait to learn because, _Alex, it’s living things that we can’t even speak to but some of them depend on us to keep them alive and that’s an awesome amount of loyalty to have in one thing that’s not certain- you know, with how people just let their plants die- it’s also kind of bad because you should never just blindly trust something but still, pretty loyal and way cool._

 

Alex wants to make a teasing comment about stereotypical Hufflepuffs, but she’s too occupied trying to figure out how the girl got all that out in one breath.

 

(That, and she’s almost certain that this girl she’s just met can’t be described with categories or placed into stereotypes.)

 

Alex begins to stuff the Hufflepuff’s notes and textbook into the bookbag lying halfway open on the floor next to her when their Professor gives them a warning glance, tapping on her wristwatch. Alex tugs on the sleeve of Maggie’s robe and jerks her head towards the exit.

 

/ /

 

She finds out that she and Maggie share four classes- Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic, and Flying.

 

She had found out the second of the four when Maggie had waved her over enthusiastically as soon as she entered the room, patting the seat next to her rapidly as the Slytherin made her way towards her, head ducked to avoid the curious glances of their other classmates.

 

She had swiped a look at Maggie’s schedule during the period and found out they shared the latter two.

 

(To which she then pointed out to Maggie, who gave her a high five and a brilliant grin in response.)

 

/ /

 

They get closer through lazy Saturdays and frantic study sessions.

 

Alex has always been the kind of person to er at the thought of company, preferring to spend her downtime alone with a book, and finding studying alone much more effective. Nevertheless, she’s meeting Maggie in the Hufflepuff common room, and fighting the castle in its effort to keep the Slytherin out every other night.

 

One weekend, they find an alcove in the forest surrounding the Great Lake. It small, but stretches out pretty deep, and Alex’s voice carries when she speaks.

 

“Looks like we weren’t the first ones here.”

 

Maggie’s pointing to a carving in the cave wall, faded, but still glaringly prominent. The carving is shaped into a roughly drawn heart, encasing the initials ‘J. P.’ and ‘L. E.’ The bottom point is unfinished, and comes to an off angle, as if someone shoved the guy carving.

 

(It was Lily Evans, who, years ago, caught on to what James was doing and playfully shoved his shoulder, rolling her eyes and making a comment about ‘cliche teenagers’. The rock had fallen out of James hand, but he beamed at the girl who had gone on a full on rant, the smile never leaving her face.)

 

Maggie bends down and pops back up with a rock in her hand.

 

“Do me the honor, Danvers?” She’s got an eyebrow raised, her hand extended, and a playful smile on her lips.

 

They hike back to the castle in time for dinner, a freshly made carving of their names and the date marking their “discovery” brandished on the cavern wall.

 

/ /

 

About half the year passes by when Maggie asks her about that first incident.

 

“Why were they being mean to you back then?”

 

Maggie says it without putting her book down, conversationally. Maggie asks the question like the answer won’t change their friendship.

 

(And maybe it won’t; but Alex fully knows the power that certain words have, how certain words strung together could be more powerful than a hit to the gut, and sometimes, hurt just as much. She tries to believe in Maggie more than that knowledge.)

 

Alex fiddles with her hands. It’s her silence that catches Maggie’s attention.

 

She places the book face down on her comforter and sits up.

 

There’s a stuffed rhino that sits in between Maggie’s pillows. Alex keeps her eyes on it.

 

“My uh… my dad works for the Ministry. He’s an auror.”

 

Maggie tilts her head to the side.

 

“Both his parents were Muggles- they wanted him to be a scientist, and he thought he wanted that too. But then he got his acceptance letter to Durmstrang and they were really excited for him and stuff, but it kinda put everything else on hold. Eventually, he decided to just get a job in the Wizarding World.”

 

Alex shifts her gaze to meet Maggie’s. Maggie smiles in return.

 

“But he has all this science stuff in his head and it's really good stuff, you know? He has this dream of combining Muggle science and technology with magic. He says it can help a lot of people. He’s been telling the Ministry for years and it's finally getting somewhere.”

 

“What's wrong with that?”

 

Alex shrugs.

 

“Some people don't like it. They think it’s unnatural.”

 

“And… what do you think?”

 

“I think it can be really strong. Like… really good. But when the right people use it though.”

 

Maggie nods, seeming to be thinking something over. She makes a small murmur before laying back down on her mattress, picking the book up again.

 

Alex feels the need to ask.

 

“Is… is that okay?”

 

Maggie smiles over the textbook.

 

“It doesn't sound bad to me.”

 

Alex beams and goes to lay down next to her friend. Maggie presses her shoulder against Alex’s and angles the book so Alex could read from it too.

 

Alex grabs the rhino from the pillows and places it on her stomach. She points to the picture of the plant on the bottom right of the page.

 

“What's that one?”

 

/ /

 

Alex is terrible at flying but loves the feeling of it just the same.

 

(This love of said feeling is the only thing keeping her from touching back down to the ground and calling it a day.)

 

Shifting on her broom, she sits wobbling fifteen feet above the ground, watching as Madam Hooch instructs a Ravenclaw boy, crouched and gesturing in front of him.

 

She steadies herself, not quite confident enough to fly around, but too excited to mount off.

 

Across the clearing, Alex can nearly _see_ how much Maggie’s shaking. The Hufflepuff is only a few feet above the ground, her tongue stuck out and her eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

 

Looking up and catching Alex’s eye, she grins, methodically lifting a hand off the broom to give a wave and a thumbs up.

 

Alex grins and waves from her position above.

 

/ /

 

Maggie always eats breakfast and dinner with Alex, usually nowhere to be found during lunch.

 

Alex is fine with this. She’s beginning to see Maggie as her only friend here and though it was lonely when she wasn’t around, the time they spend together always seem make her forget about it.

 

Alex noticed how Maggie steered clear of the milk during breakfast and gravitated towards the fruit salad during desert rather than the piles of cookies.

 

Alex makes a mental note to ask if she’s allergic.

 

/ /

 

Maggie is usually quiet around new people. It seemed that the only time Maggie didn’t hold her tongue was when she thought something was unjust.

 

Alex liked this about her.

 

Alex has watched the brave Hufflepuff put her own little body in the middle of disputes. Alex has watched the clever Hufflepuff point out the misspelled herbs and write the correct medicinal purposes in Alex’s own Herbology homework. Alex has watched the ambitious Hufflepuff study all night to get high marks on a test that was half a week away.

 

Maggie’s glaringly brave, naturally clever, and determinately ambitious-- she’s every other house in one, and even then, she’s fiercely loyal, and humble. Hufflepuff fits her, but Alex can’t help but realize she’s got worlds bundled up in yellow robes and a golden tie.

 

Alex works to make herself good enough to be around her.

 

/ /

 

One of her roommates leaves part way through the school year and transfers to Ilvermorny. The action leaves Alex alone with Siobhan Smythe and Leslie Willis, who’re as thick as thieves and are always equipped with a snide comment.

 

Alex spends a lot of her time avoiding her room from then on.

 

/ /

 

“Alex,” Maggie whispers. Across the dorm, her roommate shushes them. “How do you feel about going for a walk?”

 

It’s a quarter past midnight and Alex would physically hit her if she didn't like her so much. Alex blinks at her friend, checking if she would disappear if she did.

 

She didn't.

 

“How’d you get in here?” Her voice was raspy from sleep.

 

Maggie waves the question away, rummaging through Alex’s trunk. She tosses Alex a sweater and nudges her shoes towards her.

 

“Come on,” Maggie insists. “I saw a Gryffindor prefect a few halls down. We might be able to get past her if we hurry.”

 

Alex, thoroughly confused, puts on the clothes nevertheless and follows her friend down to the Slytherin common room.

 

Hazy from sleep, Alex lets Maggie drag her along the castle halls, her mind only registering that they were nearing the Astronomy Tower.

 

“Maggie, where are we going?”

 

Maggie shushes her, a giddy smile on her face. Alex could swear Maggie has a knack for this whole sneaking around thing.

 

She looks around the corner and nods once. Grabbing Alex’s hand, she pulls them up the stairs and sits them down in front of a large window facing west.

 

Alex fights to catch her breath, sure they had scaled those steps in record time.

 

Maggie nudges her and whispers in a quiet voice, “Danvers, look.”

 

Alex averts her gaze to the large opening in front of her.

 

Streaks of white light fly across the cosmos, tracing the stars before disappearing from view. Alex watches in awe.

 

“What are they?” she asks in a breath, afraid that speaking too loudly would somehow cause them to stop.

 

“It’s a meteor shower. My dad and I spend a lot of time watching the stars at home. Your dad’s science-y, too, right?”

 

Alex nods, “His telescope’s usually pointed the other direction.”

 

“The stars are a lot brighter here. My dad sent me a letter a few days back and told me to watch out for this one.”

 

“It’s- It’s…” Alex splutters, unable to take her eyes off of the sky, her mind too far gone, in no position to think of the right word.

 

Maggie seems to understand anyway.

 

“Yeah… it is.”

 

/ /

 

The end of the year comes too soon. Before Alex knows it, Gryffindor’s being awarded the House Cup and the students are being sent back to the Hogwarts Express with their bags.

 

She and Maggie manage to close-off a compartment to themselves.

 

“Do you think we’ll miss it?”

 

“I know I will. What about you, Danvers?”

 

“Hm… Some of it... Maybe. I’ll miss _you_.”

 

“You gettin’ soft on me?”

 

Alex shoves her.

 

/ /

 

“Hand me the knight.”

 

Alex gives the requested piece over.

 

“You really think that’s gonna work?”

 

“Oh, no way in hell, but it’s worth a shot.”

 

Maggie’s sitting on the floor, an arrangement of wizard’s chess pieces and an unopened chocolate frog between her outstretched legs. She’s methodically placing the pieces in areas she predicts the frog would land.

 

“What’re you going to do if it does?”

 

Maggie looks up at the question, and blinks in surprise, as if never truly realizing her plan might pan out. She makes a small humming noise.

 

“Well, I’ve always wanted a pet frog named Paulo.”

 

Alex smiles and chucks a jelly bean at the smaller girl.

 

/ /

 

Back at Midvale, Alex is bored out of her mind.

 

With all the daily excitement at Hogwarts, she hadn’t realized how quiet California would be. Her father is still in London, attending to business in the Ministry, coming home at odd hours of the weekend only to be gone by morning. Nevertheless, Alex cherishes the time she spends with Jeremiah.

 

He’d take her out to the beach and tell stories of his time in Durmstrang, spin tales of ancient mythology, or explain some theory in quantum physics. When there's something he can't very well describe, he'd take out a pen from his pocket and scribble numbers and diagrams across Alex’s forearms. Come morning and his leave, Alex traces over the fading lines with a permanent marker to prolong their existence.

 

Her days are spent studying for the upcoming year’s classes and attempts in making a solid plan for her OWLs in her fifth year. At night, she sneaks out of the house through the backdoor, grabs one of her dad’s old broomsticks from his days playing, and practices flying.

 

She’s getting quite good at it, really. On the nights the clouds are too dense and the stars not so bright, she opts for a late night surfing session instead.

 

Her only company during this time is a few old friends from her days in the Muggle schooling system, to which she would politely wave to before turning heel and nearly sprinting the other direction, her mother, and the occasional letter from Maggie, which never fails to brighten her day.

 

It’s a Thursday night when she meets Kara.

 

Her father hasn’t come home for weeks, busy on some extended mission from the Ministry to investigate a trail of followers of Lex Luthor. Alex’s only update on the whereabouts of her father are given through the small paragraphs printed on the Daily Prophet.

 

The latest article describes how a group of aurors, in which her dad’s name was apart of, helped defend an attack from dark wizards on a werewolf-wizard community located in some isolated mountain range called Krypton. The paper goes into detail about how much is unknown about the attack, which serves useless to Alex.

 

After reading the article, she frantically scribbles everything she remembers from her talks with Jeremiah onto her arm, as the last of his own writing had washed away after her last surfing escapade.

 

The next night, Alex lays in her bed, staring at nothing, thoughts spiraling, when she hears the telltale signs of Apparition. The loud whoosh reaches her ears and she scrambles down the stairs to meet her dad.

 

Kara is small, Alex probably has more than a few inches on her, and the blonde-haired girl has a nasty scar that trails from the top of her shoulder to about halfway down her forearm.

 

Alex halts at the steps when she sees her. They stare at each other and Alex could nearly see the pain in the other girl’s eyes. Unable to hold the gaze, she turns, instead, towards her father-- who's a picture of distress himself, his clothes covered in ruble and something that looks awfully like dried blood. 

 

“Dad?” She calls out.

 

Jeremiah turns towards her, an exhausted smile turning his lips.

 

“Hey there, kiddo. You want to take Kara here to your room for a bit while I talk to your mom?”

 

/ /

 

Kara fits seamlessly into her family, but has trouble everywhere else. She uses slang no one else knew, flaps her arms when she gets excited, and has trouble sitting still.

 

And somehow, Eliza blames Alex for it.

 

“You have a sister now, Alexandra, you have to show her how to do these things-- you have to be better for her.”

 

Despite what Eliza pushes for, Alex already feels a strange sense of shelter around this strange girl, and she tells herself that she _will_ be better for Kara because Kara deserves it, not because Eliza told her she has to.

 

The summer turns around when Kara arrives. She speaks a lot about Krypton to Alex, well, she speaks a lot about Krypton to anyone with ears and time to listen, but Alex could tell it could be a bit much for Eliza and Jeremiah. She, on the other hand, always has time.

 

Krypton started out as a wizarding community. They were native to the land and practiced a powerful type of wandless magic. During the time of the Second Wizarding War and the Anti-Werewolf Legislation of 1993 by Dolores Umbridge, Krypton served as a safe haven for werewolves and their kind alike. It was a working system-- every full moon, the community would make a festival of the event, making sure every lycan had a dose of Wolfsbane so they could keep their right mind when they transformed. By 1999, a year after the repeal of the legislation, the werewolves had grown to the life in the small village and decided to stay.

 

Word of Krypton got around to those who opposed the existence of half-breeds, namely, Lex Luthor-- a dark lord who is said to have a mind set for their errassure from the Wizarding World. At first, the community held to the attacks of Lex’s minions, fighting valiantly alongside each other to defend against the opposition of dark witches and wizards.

 

However, the practitioners of dark magic had a few tricks up their sleeve, and Krypton was brought down by their very citizens-- someone had rendered the effects of the Wolfsbane potion useless, and that month, on the full moon, werewolves were taken over by their beastly state of mind and ravaged the community. Come morning, the lycans were faced with the guilt of what they’d done and put up no fight when Lex’s followers came to finish the job.

 

Kara was one of the lone survivors of the attack, and after being mauled by one of her parent’s closest friends, she was left with a deep scar, and developed lupine tendencies, particularly, a very large appetite.

 

When Alex heard the full story the first time, she can see how vividly Kara was reliving the events in her head. Alex was never one to be outwardly expressive with her emotions. Not knowing how to console the girl, she snuck up a tub of ice-cream from the kitchen, placed a punk rock cd into her cd player, and held the little girl who she cried into spoonfuls of ice cream as Greenday played in the background.

 

/ /

 

Maggie writes to her about the children in her small town. They’re not allowed to interact with Muggles in America, but Alex knows exactly what Maggie thinks of this law.

 

She’s bitter, Alex can tell through her words, at how small minded they are. Alex would be too if she had to go through that.  

 

Maggie tells Alex of how unfair they’re being, of the names they call her, and how much she misses Hogwarts.

 

Alex feels a knot forming in her stomach at these words. Maggie had been there with her when she was going through a hard time and Alex couldn’t even return the favor.  

 

Alex tries to cheer her friend up-- telling her about Kara and the ocean and even invites Maggie over-- but she knows some things are hard to be cheerful about, so instead, she offers to fly over and beat them up.

 

/ /

 

Alex starts giving Kara flying lessons. She had gotten to a point where she’d call herself a fair flyer (and to the point a non-Alex-Danvers-overachiever person would call good enough to join a minor league Quidditch team), and she’s coming around to the idea of sharing things with her new sister.

 

They start off in the afternoon, waiting until Eliza’s gone off to the labs before racing down to the backyard shed and grabbing the broomsticks.

 

Kara is great for a beginner. She’s able to hold on through the drills Alex has her perform, and she only _slightly_ lags when trying to keep up with Alex’s speed.

 

Eliza comes home early one day to find Kara hanging off her dad’s broom, Alex on the ground instructing her how to mount it when it she’s in a precarious situation. The younger girl swings herself over with a determined look on her face, teeth gritted at the effort, and Alex exclaims happily on the ground, celebrating.

 

Eliza blames Alex for giving her a self-diagnosed heart attack.

 

Later that night, after Alex had been thoroughly scolded, she sits at the backyard, splayed out, muttering obscenities to herself as she picks at the grass.

 

Light spills from the house as her dad comes outside to join her. He lowers himself on the grass with a small noise of displeasure.

 

“Your mom told me what she caught you two doing today.”

 

“Look, whatever you’re going to say, I’m sure mom’s already shouted. I get it, okay? It was wrong. It was dangerous. Kara could’ve gotten hurt.” Alex is spitting out her mother’s words now, pulling up a handful of grass from their roots. Maggie would’ve glared at her. She grabs the discarded chunk and pats it back down into its place. _Good enough..._

 

“Did you come out here to yell at me some more?” She shoots at Jeremiah, because _of course_ he’d return home for the first time this week just to be disappointed in her. She grits her teeth, refusing to show just how much she’d missed him.

 

Jeremiah chuckles. The sound of it causes Alex to look at him incredulously.

 

“I came out here to…” He pauses, and tilts his head slightly, choosing his next words carefully. “tell you that your mother’s a pretty heavy sleeper.”

 

Alex gapes at him in disbelief.

 

“And not to use the Nimbus 1000. The old thing’s worn down-- you’ll have a lot more fun with the Cleansweep Eleven or the Comet 140.”

 

With that, Jeremiah winks, pats her on the back and makes his way back inside.

 

Alex and Kara practice flying during the night from then on.

 

Alex makes a comment about the irony of witches flying around at night on broomsticks. Kara gives her a confused look and Alex waves the comment aside.

 

/ /  

 

Kara returns the favor by teaching Alex how to perform wandless magic. Having lived in a community that prefered and perfected it, Kara has a knack for the notably advanced type of magic and tries to teach Alex.

 

It’s one of the hardest things she’s ever attempted to do. It takes ages for her mind to settle and focus, and she never thought she had a problem doing that until then. Thankfully, Kara is patient. She repeats soothing mantras and doesn’t get offended when Alex snaps at her.

 

After staring intently an apple for nearly an hour without it moving, Alex is just about ready to give up.

 

“How do you even just… think of _nothing_?” Alex murmurs. Kara looks up from studying Alex’s stack of cd’s.

 

“It’s not like _that_ exactly. It’s more like… try… try concentrating on the one thing that makes everything else disappear. Think of something that makes everything else _feel_ like nothing. D-does that make sense?”

 

Kara tilts her head to one side, squints her eyes, and effortlessly, the fruit floats into the air. The little girl blinks and it gravitates down gently, back in front of Alex.

 

Alex nods, placing her attention once again on the frustrating fruit.

 

She thinks of her year at Hogwarts, of the barbed insults thrown her way, the sneers Veronica had pointed at her, the pressure Eliza never released her from-- and she thinks of Maggie, who’d always made it seem all so arbitrary.

 

The apple shakes.

 

She thinks of her dad, who always takes her out flying when her mom was being exceptionally hard on her.

 

A rattle.

 

She thinks then, of Kara, her baby sister who had lost her entire world yet manages to smile and be _good_ through all of it.

 

The apple topples over.

 

Kara holds her breath as she watches her sister in fascination.

 

Alex thinks of the three of them together-- of Maggie’s dimples, Jeremiah’s voice, and Kara’s laugh. She thinks of how wonderful her world is with them, and how nothing else could quite compare. She lets her mind swim in its memories of these people, of the unique feelings of elation that eventually came to be associated with only them, and floats around in this realization.

 

The apple slowly makes its ascent into the air and hovers.

 

It’s a shaky movement, nothing like the effortless action Kara had done, it’s probably about three inches off the table, and it makes Alex feel like there is a baseball-sized rock pressing itself up against her brain.

 

But she’s done it.

 

Alex grins and jumps up, concentration lost, the fruit forgotten and left to bruise as it topples to the ground, as Kara lets out a whoop and tackles her sister in a hug.

 

/ /

 

Alex turns twelve as summer comes to a close.

 

On the day, her family takes her out to the beach, makes a fire pit in the sand, and spends the day together.

 

Her mom gifts her with a new sweater for the colder months of the school year that Alex was beginning to think she would never get used to. Kara gets her a telescope, having heard her sister’s story of that night on the Astronomy Tower with Maggie. Her dad, who had taken off work for the day, gives her his own annotated copy of _Magical Drafts and Potions_ by Arsenius Jigger and a copy of Stephen Hawking’s new book, _The Universe in a Nutshell_.

 

The day before, a tired owl had dropped off an envelope with Maggie’s birthday wishes to Alex. Inside was a card with a small note, and a moving picture of the two of them next to the Great Lake-- Maggie sat cross-legged, laughing joyously at a wet, disgruntled Alex.

 

She remembered that day. Maggie had brought down a loaf of bread from breakfast and taken Alex down to the lake on a mission to try to see the giant squid. To say the least, Alex had to run back to the dorms to change out of her soaking clothes before first block. Some fellow first-year Gryffindor with a camera had seen it all unfold and snapped a photo.

 

She grinned at it, and placed it on top of the stack of books on her bedside table. She made a mental note to frame and pack it for the school year.

 

Giddy, Alex had sat down and immediately wrote a thank you, feeding and giving the owl water before sending it back with the response.

 

/ /

 

Alex gains an affinity for wandless healing spells. It still takes a lot to accomplish and much more to follow through, but she deems them easier to focus on and she often finds herself healing the bruising of fruits in her spare time.

 

She hopes the use of the wandless spells can’t be picked up by the Ministry via the Trace, but they hadn’t come barreling down the doors yet, so she thinks she’s okay. Either that, or they assume her parents perform multitudes of small spells daily.

 

Kara barrels into the ground one night when they’re flying and thankfully, she was already on her way to mount off and thus, only falls a few feet from the ground.

 

Still, the blonde-haired girl sniffles as Alex inspects the scrapes on her palms and knees. Alex places Kara on the steps of the back porch and murmurs a healing spell under her breath, her hand extended over the smaller girl’s injuries.

 

It's harder than fruit. Alex grits her teeth through the pain in her head, grits her teeth through the feeling of sharp, continuous stinging in her brain, and mushes on for her sister.

 

The wounds close smoothly, the only trace of the fall was the dirt that Kara’s covered with.

 

“You’re getting better at that.” Kara comments, beaming. Alex returns the gesture even though her head felt fuzzy.

 

She shrugs, nudges Kara’s shoulder, and does a good job pretending the simple spell hadn’t made all the air leave her lungs, “I had a good teacher.”

 

/ /

 

Kara turns eleven just under the cutoff for the new wave of first-years, and Alex is just as excited as she is when she gets her acceptance letters from Hogwarts, Ilvermorny, and, later, Beauxbatons.

 

Eliza turns up her nose at the letter from Ilvermorny, the same way she had when Alex expressed interest in the school last year, and Alex rolls her eyes, telling Kara to choose whatever feels best for her.

 

Kara chooses Hogwarts, the decision easy for her and from then on, it’s all she speaks about.

 

“Alex, what house do you think I’ll be sorted into?” her voice is quiet, but it does little to hide the excitement in them.

 

Alex turns in her bed to face Kara’s.

 

“I’m not too sure. Gryffindor, probably.” A pause. “Maybe Hufflepuff.”

 

Her sister laughs giddily before pausing abruptly.

 

“You’ll still be my friend even if I don’t get into Slytherin, right?”

 

Alex smiles at her through the darkness of their room, knowing full well that the girl with lupine attributes can see it.

 

“Of course, Kar. Always.”

 

She thinks her sister returns the smile.

 

“Now get some sleep, we’ll have to get up early tomorrow for the train.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the first piece of fanfic I've ever written. I hope I've done you all proud. It was more fun than I thought it'd be, tbh. All mistakes are my own, as I don't have a beta. This fic is all planned out (that's a lie, I've got the final chapter left to do. Endings are hard.) and the second chapter is finished and waiting to be edited- which coincidentally is the thing that takes me the longest. Tell me what y'all think though and if it's okay enough to continue with this fic. 
> 
> Happy September 1st!


	2. Second Year / / 2001-2002

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before starting, I just wanted to address the timeline of the story-- in canon, Alex was fourteen when Kara came to live with the Danvers', and in this story, she's eleven, so everything's just sped up a tad. I don't think it's too much of a large difference, but then again, I remember being fourteen and cringing at eleven-year-old me, so... there's a point for each column. Alright then... Here goes nothing. Hope you guys enjoy the chapter!

Alex is nervous. She sits in a compartment of the Hogwarts Express, grinding her teeth in anticipation. 

 

She had boarded the train a few minutes back after a prolonged goodbye with her parents. Her mother, of course, had fussed over Kara and given Alex a warning glance, telling her to watch over her sister. Her dad, on the other hand, gave her a bone crushing hug, ruffled her hair, and told her not to go too hard on herself. Kara, who hadn’t stopped vibrating all morning, promptly dragged Alex on board. 

 

The aforementioned girl was now bouncing her leg up and down, looking around their compartment and waiting for the train to move. 

 

Alex checked the watch on her wrist; they’ve got another quarter hour until the train leaves. She spares a glance at the door, which she insisted they keep open for a certain Hufflepuff second-year. 

 

“Everything okay, Alex?” Kara twists towards her, her head tilting to one side as she inspects her sister. 

 

“Me? Oh, yeah. Fine.” 

 

Kara points to the ceiling, “You’re making it snow.”

 

Alex curses under her breath and fights to keep her emotions in check. It’s not that she’s worried that Maggie won’t like Kara, she’s worried that Maggie will start comparing the two of them-- and Alex, as much as she loves her sister, knows that’s a comparison she’ll never come out on top of. She picks at the upholstery of the seat. 

 

“Danvers!” The excited greeting comes from the opening of the compartment. 

 

Alex and Kara both turn at the call, and  _oh_ , Maggie’s right there with that big smile of hers. 

 

“Oh. Danvers- _es_.” Maggie corrects herself, stressing the plural. She moves into the compartment, lugging a case behind her. “You must be Kara.”

 

Kara stands in the presence of a new person, a grin wide enough to rival that of Maggie’s on her face, “And you must be Maggie.”

 

Maggie stretches her hand out in greeting; Kara studies it for a quick moment before using the outstretched hand to pull the girl in for a hug. Maggie makes a noise of surprise and Alex fights the urge to smile. 

 

They part and Kara moves to sit back down. 

 

Maggie pauses, pointing to her luggage and then to the compartment overhead. “Can I…?”

 

Alex nods, shooting up to help the other girl. Once her luggage is placed and secured, Kara pulls on Alex’s arm. 

 

“Can I go now?” She’s using that irresistible tone of hers and Alex rolls her eyes affectionately and sends her off with a,  _go._

 

After a quick goodbye towards Maggie and a hug for Alex, the door slides shut as the younger girl goes off to find friends in her year. 

 

When she’s gone, Maggie turns towards Alex, smirking. 

 

“Am I getting a hug from you too, Danvers?” 

 

Alex knows full well she probably meant it as a joke, but she’s stepping forward and wrapping Maggie in a hug anyway. The other girl tenses for a moment before relaxing and returning the gesture. Parting with one last squeeze, Maggie steps back half a step and checks her watch. 

 

Grinning, she teases, “Train’s just about ready to leave. Wanna go out to the walkway and do that thing where we wave out to our parents from the windows?” 

 

/ / 

 

Later in the ride, Alex goes out of the compartment to find a trolley, sent out by Maggie with a request for a chocolate frog and cauldron cakes because, “Nebraska’s got two things, Danvers-- corn and more corn. The wizarding world is a safe haven in more ways than one.”

 

On her way down the walkway, she spots Kara sitting in a compartment with Lena Luthor because  _of course_  she would. The latter of the two laughs a bit cautiously at something her sister said, and Alex would bet her left arm that Kara hasn’t once let up her smile the entire ride. 

 

As she’s making her way back, she stops at the door and knocks twice before sliding it open. Alex throws a package of licorice wands towards Kara, to which the other girl yelped in surprise at, yet effortlessly caught. Turning to continue on her way, she throws Lena a chocolate bar over her shoulder, meeting her eye beforehand and giving the younger girl a smile. 

 

/ / 

 

Kara gets sorted into Hufflepuff and the yellow-clad table cheers in result. Alex lets out a whoop of delight from where she’s seated, glaring away the glances her fellow housemates are giving her. The younger girl goes over and sits next to Maggie, who immediately makes room for her and meets Alex’s eye to give her a thumbs up from across the tables. 

 

The room goes silent when Lena Luthor steps up to the center. The girl is visibly shaking, though it’s also noticeable how much she’s trying not to. The Sorting Hat takes its time, and Lena’s tremble isn’t getting any less violent. 

 

With a loud harrumph, the hat shifted on the girl’s head and let out a loud, “Slytherin!”

 

There’s exactly one person who cheers-- Kara. Her sister is standing from where she’s at, clapping her hands together, and cheering giddily. 

 

Lena sulks into a seat and keeps her head down for the rest of the ceremony. Alex pushes food silently onto her plate when she sees the first-year won’t eat. 

 

/ / 

 

Alex is sitting in the courtyard with her Potions notes in hand, her dad’s old book next to her, trying to figure out why her latest experiment had turned her hair blonde for a week when she overhears the conversation of a group of Ravenclaw boys that causes her to stiffen. 

 

“It just doesn’t  _fit_  with magical objects. Not to mention the setbacks it’d create for the wizarding world, or the side effects of trying something like that.”

 

A murmur of agreement is shared among the group. Alex begins to pack her bag. 

 

“I mean, hell, look at the younger one. I bet their family was so desperate to prove themselves that they didn’t think twice about trying just that. And, well, human trial be damned, we’ve all  _seen_  Kara Danvers.”

 

A laugh is shared among the group. Alex nearly breaks her ink reserve. 

 

Schooling her features, she clenches her teeth, seething silently. Calmly picking up her knapsack, she stands as the group hushes to move past her. She grabs the robes of the one who had spoken and jerks him back to a stop. 

 

“Max Lord, right?”

 

The addressed Ravenclaw shares a look with his friends before a smirk breaks out on his face. He’s got a lot of height on her and at least two more years, but Alex can’t stop herself. 

 

She adjusts the straps of her bag and centers her weight, fully aware of the sneering eyes watching her. Tilting her head up to face Max, she squints her eyes, pulls back her fist, and makes a calculated punch towards his nose. 

 

The action costs her a hundred fifty house points. 

 

The resulting effect is an explosive debate that sweeps the campus, the topic solely on Muggle technology and its integration with the tech of the Wizarding World.

 

In the crosshairs, however, arises a new wave of digs and backhand comments towards the Danvers’ family. It’s during this time that people begin to uncover Kara’s background, their inclusive view of half-breeds, and Kara’s lupine tendencies. 

 

That springs about a whole new set of problems. 

 

A Gryffindor fifth-year sneers and jests at Kara during breakfast one day, some close-minded thing about half-breeds, and he makes the mistake of doing it in front of Alex. 

 

The second-year seeks him out before dinner later that day and leaves him with a black eye and a bloody lip. Alex heals the swelling of her knuckles, gritting her teeth through the pain. 

 

From then on, she earns herself a reputation and Kara, some peace of mind. 

 

/ / 

 

Alex walks into the Great Hall and spots Lena and Kara bent over a game of Wizard’s Chess. 

 

They’re playing with the pieces she got her sister for the start of the term, Alex can tell by the way Lena is currently arguing with a knight to move to the requested space. 

 

She can feel herself smiling as she watches her sister laughing freely. The Hufflepuff leans over and says something to the knight, who then slowly moves into position, grumbling. Lena lets out a huff and a quiet, grateful thanks, and Alex turns to leave the Hall to give the two some space.

 

She could always talk to Kara later.

 

/ / 

 

“Merlin, Danvers, where do you plan to  _sleep_ .” Maggie exaggerates, eyeing the Slytherin’s paper-covered mattress. Alex had just unloaded the package her parents sent her-- a box filled with a forwarded copy of every issue of  _Time_  magazine that had arrived while Alex was away at school along with the newest issue of a few comic books Alex kept up with. 

 

Alex rolls her eyes, “Okay, it’s not  _that_  bad.”

 

She pushes a few issues off of her bed, just enough to make room for her body if she curled up and didn’t move in her sleep.

 

“There. See? All good.”

 

Maggie rummages through the pile nearest her and pulls up an issue of  _Rolling Stone_  featuring NSYNC, a playful smirk on her face. 

 

“Very edgy, Danvers.”

 

“That’s supposed to be for Kara.”

 

“Uhuh, I’m sure it is.” 

 

/ /

 

Alex offers the extra bed in her dorm to Lena on the nights the younger girl has to deal with tormenting from her own roommates, which happens more often than not. 

 

The first time Alex had reached out to help, she’d pulled the girl into her dorm after running into her on the way to morning classes. Lena had emerged from her own room earlier that day, her hair dyed with various shades of red, patchy, angry and vibrant in some areas and shifting to a light hue of pink at odd places. 

 

“What’s with the new ‘due, Luthor?” Alex had inquired, eyeing the girl oddly. Lena shrugged and held her head high though a deeply ingrained sadness was visible in her eyes. 

 

Behind them, one of Lena’s roommates exists the room, laughing under her breath as she shoves past Lena. Alex immediately hardens but schools her features as she turns to face her sister’s friend. 

 

“Do you want me to get Kara?” She offered softly. The younger girl’s eyes widened and she jerked her head no. 

 

“Alright then.” Alex had already made a decision anyway. “Come.”

 

One counter-curse and an offer of a safe haven later, she sent Lena out for her classes. 

 

It became nearly habit from then on; Lena would sneak out of her room and spend the night in Alex’s, always waking early to sneak back in. Alex had acknowledged Lena’s presence with a glare directed at her own roommates who always looked like they would object. 

 

It occurred repeatedly enough to the point in which it caught the attention of prefects, and from there-- the head of house. 

 

When both called to the head’s office, Lena stood, her voice even and controlled as she explained that Alex was only trying to help, as her roommates often thought it funny for Lena to be the guinea pig in their experimental spells. 

 

Watching her, Alex couldn't help but raise an eyebrow and admire her sister’s friend, impressed. She could have a job in the Ministry, Alex thinks. Or be a very powerful business woman in the Muggle world someday. Still, the girl was shaking, and Alex could see how afraid she was to stand up to an authority figure. 

 

Because of this, Alex stood to join in on Lena’s argument, arms crossed in front of her, gaze steady, pressing her shoulder against the younger girl’s in a silent attempt to soothe her. 

 

In response, Professor Grant had tsked and ranted, but it ended with Lena packing her bags and permanently moving to another dorm. All in all, Alex considered it a win. 

 

Still, Lena will frequently visit Alex’s room, if nothing but to talk about the subjects in the Muggle schooling system. They had both agreed that by their going to Hogwarts, they were giving up an entire world of knowledge-- and that just couldn’t sit right with either of them. They would converse about subjects from theoretical physics, to inorganic chemistry well into curfew. 

 

More often than not, on those nights, Lena would opt to stay in the free bunk, though she had no qualms about her new roommates. When the re-emerging issue was brought forth to the head of house once again, the professor turned her back and let it slide. 

 

/ /

 

Maggie blows her off three times in just as many days. 

 

Alex thinks she’s just busy with schoolwork when she sees her friend hanging out with Eliza Wilke by some concealed area of the Lake-- the same day Alex had asked Maggie for help studying for a Herbology exam. 

 

The two are sitting close together, and Maggie’s looking up at Eliza the way Kara does when she’s asking Alex for more food. The other girl looks a bit smug and holds out her hand. A small trail of smoke floats up, and the scent around the two of them is unmistakably burning tobacco. The two of them are passing a cigarette back and forth. 

 

She turns back towards the dorms, burying herself in textbooks in the common room as she tries not to let her mind wander. Maggie has other friends, and Alex is totally okay with that. Definitely. It’s not like she has some claim towards the other girl. 

 

Nonetheless, later that night, when Eliza walks past her, the scent of cigarette smoke sticking to the green of her house robes, Alex has to clench her fists and actively force herself not to look up from her book to glare at the girl. 

 

The next day, Maggie’s pulling Eliza towards Alex during their lunch hour, and the two are properly introduced. 

 

She’s  _nice_ , which is a surprise Alex could do well without, and she could see why Maggie’s drawn to her. 

 

She’s polite and kind, but Alex is thrown off by the decidedly rebellious glint in the other girl’s eyes-- there’s something dangerous about her, something so remarkably concealed it’s almost impossible to detect. She wonders if Maggie could see it. 

 

Alex wants to draw away. But before she can act on the feeling, her fellow housemate is retreating to the halls with a wink and a wave and Maggie is gushing about her in that way she does anything-- consciously schooling the amount of emotion she’s emitting. Alex knew that Maggie was a bit more of a private person, she understood that, she had fallen privy to being that way herself-- but she’s always thought that they were each other’s exception to that privacy. 

 

Alex wishes Maggie wouldn’t. She wants to hear it all, wants to know everything going through her friend’s head-- even though the subject topic isn’t anything she really what she wants to talk about. 

 

Maggie’s talking about how Eliza invited her over to her parent’s house in England for the holidays, and Alex is wondering if Maggie holds herself back with Eliza. She doesn’t think she ever wants to hear the answer. 

 

/ / 

 

“What do you want to do when you’re older?”

 

Alex looks up from her Astrology notes to where Maggie is sitting at the top of her pillows, using the feathery part of her quil to poke absentmindedly at the orchid that sits on the bedside table. The yellow buds had bloomed since Alex had last been in her friend’s dorm. 

 

“I… don’t really know.” She answers honestly. 

 

“Well… What’re you interested in?”

 

“Science.” She says this easily, marking the page in her notes and closing them, fully knowing they weren’t going back to studying anytime soon. 

 

“Why don’t you do that then?” 

 

Alex scowls as she answers, disappointed of her reason, and mutters, “It won’t help with everything everyone’s saying about me.”

 

Maggie knows what she’s referring to without the other girl spelling it out. She leans back against the headboard and shrugs. 

 

“Well then fuck them.” 

 

Alex looks at her in surprise. It’s not that she’s never heard the word, after all, she’s twelve, but the times she had were moments of distress from adults who had warned her not to imitate their language, followed by a list of threats. She’s yet to hear anyone her age say it. 

 

Though she knows full well that Eliza had a say in the new vocabulary, she files the use of the word as a distinctly Maggie trait. 

 

“I don’t think it’s that simple.” 

 

“Sure it is, Danvers. I know it can be hard to ignore it sometimes, but they can’t get to you if you don’t let them.”

 

Maggie’s looking her straight in the eye and holding the gaze. Alex knows she’s referring to the past summer and how the Muggle children in her town had thrown barbed insults at her whenever they could. Alex knows this and immediately feels guilty for voicing her comparably minuscule problem. 

 

Maggie continues, reaching out to nudge her friend in the shoulder. 

 

“And you’re Alex Danvers, from what I’m hearing around the castle-- you aren’t.” 

 

Alex feels herself starting to smile at the words, but works to change the subject anyhow-- the guilt eating at her. 

 

“What about you? What’re your future plans?”

 

“I’m going to be a cop, like my dad. You should see him, Danvers, he’s so tough and strong and cares so much about people. It’s so cool. He can be a bit hard sometimes, but… I want to be like him. I want to be everything  _good_  about him.”

 

The Hufflepuff says this in a solid, determined tone. 

 

“That sounds awesome.”

 

“It is. And watch, one day, I’m going to be a cop and you’re going to be a scientist, and we’re going to live in an apartment together like that one show Jennifer Aniston is on in Muggle television, and I’ll chase bad guys and you’ll like... stop global warming, or cure cancer, or something because you know damn well you could if you tried, and… Fuck, Danvers, we’re gonna save the world one day and then come right back home and eat ice cream.”

 

Alex is most definitely grinning now.

 

“But it won’t happen if you’re worried about assholes who don’t even know what they’re talking about. So promise me you won’t let them get to you. For the sake of our futures.” 

 

Maggie extenuates her words by reaching out, grasping Alex’s shoulders, and shaking the taller girl, feigning a frantic look.  

 

Alex laughs at her antics, smiling as she gives the other girl her word. 

 

“I promise.”

 

“And when it gets to an unbearable point, I’ll be here with a pint and those science journals you’re obsessed with, and we’ll just forget about everything. It’ll be great.”

 

Maggie nudges her shoulder, a smile on her face. 

 

“Maggie Sawyer and Alex Danvers-- saving the world, putting assholes in their place, eating dessert. Not exclusively in that order. Think of how awesome it’ll be.” 

 

/ / 

 

Alex is back at Midvale for the holidays, and she starts the season off by shredding the copy of  _The Daily Prophet_ that an owl dropped off. She had woken up to find the paper on the front porch, and after reading the front page story, ran off to hide the thing from Kara. 

 

It was about Lex Luthor-- how his cause started gaining a younger, fresher following-- how wizards were now protesting his trial and urging for his release. The words themselves were horrible to read, the hateful rhetoric of blood purity making Alex stir uncomfortable, and the photo of the dark lord grinning evilly, shackled to a cell hadn’t helped either. 

 

She makes a mental note to talk about the issue with her dad and spends the day talking to Kara about her school year so far. 

 

As the younger girl jumps up on her bed, reenacting an event from her Defense Against the Dark Arts class, the light in her eyes shining, Alex silently vows to make sure nothing will ever diminish it. 

 

/ / 

 

Jeremiah comes home later in the week and a few days after, the family starts their celebration of Chanukah with latkes and a friendly game of dreidel. 

 

It’s Kara who lights the first candle, it being her first time celebrating the holiday, and Alex wonders what it must be like for her-- to have believed in something her entire life only to be celebrating someone completely different. 

 

Later that night, after presents and dinner, Alex turned in her bed and asked Kara about Rao. 

 

Excited, the younger girl began spinning tales of the deity. 

 

/ / 

 

The season ends with new traditions and a renewed amount of pressure from her mom. Alex enters the castle with a kink in her neck and an unrelenting amount of tension in her shoulders. 

 

Kara runs off to find Lena after a quick hug and a smile. Maggie is nowhere to be found, and Alex is left to wander around the castle, talking to the paintings on the wall until they tire of her. 

 

It’s only when the term starts up again, during her first class, that she sees her friend. Maggie looks troubled, distraught, and everything in between. Her shoulders are slumped, her tie is hastily done, and her hair, wild. She ignores Alex’s call and goes to sit near the back of the class as opposed to where the pair had shared a desk since the year before.

 

Before Alex could put any thought to it, the seat next to her is occupied by a friendly-looking Ravenclaw, and their professor is walking in and starting the class. 

 

That night, Maggie’s coming into her dorm, looking worse than she had earlier in the day. Alex studies her friend carefully; she’s got her shoulders slumped, her eyes downcast, and is devoid her usual swagger. 

 

Across the room, Siobhan looks up from tinkering with some Muggle device and rolls her eyes.

 

“Merlin, Alex, don’t your friends have their own damn rooms…” Siobhan curses, collecting her things and moving out to the common room, complete with a glare towards the pair. 

 

Maggie is left to stand awkwardly in front of the closed door, clenching and unclenching her fists in her robes. Alex doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what’s  _wrong_ , and it’s killing her to see her friend like this. 

 

A moment passes in silence and Maggie still hasn’t looked up or  _moved_. Cautiously, Alex scoots over in her bed and pats at the space she’s made. 

 

“How were your holidays?”

 

“Alex, I need to talk to you.”

 

Their words overlap each other’s as they speak at the same time. It causes Maggie to look up and give Alex a small smile and a chuckle. Alex, in the return of her friend’s grin, almost lets out a sigh of relief. 

 

The humor quickly leaving, Maggie walks to Alex’s bed slowly, her movements calculated. The Hufflepuff sits herself down as far away from Alex as she possibly can. Alex stays still and quiet, wanting to give her friend the space to let herself be expressive. She did, however, shift slightly to face her.

 

Maggie licks her lips and slowly chooses her words.

 

“A few things happened when I was at Eliza’s during break. We were in her dad’s basement, and everything looked a little foggy through the cigarette smoke, but I could still see her smiling at me, and… I- I started feeling-” 

 

The older girl cuts herself off abruptly, shaking her head. Maggie’s moving off the bed and towards the door before Alex can process what had just happened. 

 

“I’m sorry, this was really stupid. It’s nothing.” She shaking her head repeatedly as if she’s trying to shake the thoughts out of her mind. 

 

“W-w-woah, wait.” Alex is blinking away her confusion and reaching out to grab Maggie’s forearm, and though the other girl flinches, she doesn’t pull out of the hold.

 

“Maggie,” Alex looks at her softly, and speaks in a quiet voice, trying to meet her gaze that’s currently pointing towards the ground. “what happened?” 

 

After a moment, Maggie looks up again, all smiles-- and there it is, there she goes schooling her emotions again. The Hufflepuff gently pulls her arm out of Alex’s grip and stands up straight. 

 

“Nothing happened. It’s fine, Danvers. Don’t worry about it, I’ll sort through it eventually.” She waves her hand in a dismissive manner and moves towards the exit again. “I’ll call Siobhan back up if I see her on my way out and apologize. Don’t want her hexing you in your sleep.”

 

Maggie says her piece in an upbeat manner, but Alex can see the slight set to her jaw and the hardness in her eyes. 

 

Alex reaches out once again when Maggie moves away. Using the leverage of her momentum, Alex swings her back into a tight hug. Maggie tenses and doesn’t let up, but Alex pushes on, curling herself around the shorter girl and tucking her head in the crook of Maggie’s shoulder.

 

“You don’t have to tell me what it is, but something’s bothering you, and I know you don’t want to talk about it. But Maggie, I’ll be here for you, whatever it is. I’ll always be here for you.”

 

Alex punctuates her sentences with a tight squeeze and feels Maggie crumble under the words. 

 

Slowly, steadily, shakily, the tension is released from Maggie’s body, and she’s wrapping her arms around Alex, holding on tighter and tighter as stifled sobs escape her body. 

 

Maggie hiccups through her quiet, whispered words, “I’m so scared, Alex.” 

 

“I’ve got you, Maggie.” She rubs her back in what she hopes to be a soothing manner and holds the smaller girl as she shakes. “And it’s okay to be afraid.”

 

/ /

 

Alex has come to the conclusion that Maggie is avoiding her. Which is fine-- Alex had told her that she’d be there, and part of that was knowing when it was better not to be. 

 

Alex wonders how the two of them got to this point, wonders what happened between Eliza and Maggie over the holidays that somehow got to affecting Alex as well. 

 

The only thing that helps the pain of this realization is the increased presence of Kara and Lena, and the fact that Maggie seems to be avoiding Eliza too. 

 

/ / 

 

It’s during this Sans Maggie period that Alex learns that Lena is a Legilimens. Lena and Alex are sitting together in the Hufflepuff halls, leaning against the walls with their legs stretched out in front of them, waiting for Kara. 

 

She had heard the rumors that the youngest Luthor, though adopted, had the same gift as her notoriously known brother, but never believed they held any weight. 

 

But as she got closer to the younger girl with her newfound time, Alex only found herself becoming more and more impressed. 

 

“It’s not  _mind-reading_  exactly…” Lena explained slowly, watching Alex carefully, as if waiting for the older Slytherin to hex her or hurt her for being different. Of course, Alex would never. 

 

“It started when I was younger-- I could feel _everything_  that everyone else around me felt. If the feeling was strong enough, I’d start feeling it too, or it would make everything more intense.”

 

(She neglects to tell Alex how her mother used this skill of Lena’s for her own amusement, emitting so much anger and disappointment at large multitudes at a time, that after feeling it for a while, Lena would just end up numb-- and though constantly being surrounded with stimuli was hard, that kind of dissociation was arguably tougher. It’s only years after this initial conversation that Alex learns this for herself.)  

 

“And what about now?” Alex inquired, curious to learn more about the ability. 

 

“It comes and goes. If I put enough effort, I can block it out, or read one person specifically-- though I try not to. It’s harder with actual thoughts. It’s sort of like a hinge that swings both ways; when I go into someone’s mind, it takes a lot of effort to make sure they can’t see into mine at the same time. And even then, the best I could do is glimpses.”

 

Alex fires question after question onto Lena, trying to understand the new concept to its entirety. However, after a while, she stops-- Lena doesn't like talking about herself, that much could be seen from fifty miles away without a telescope, and Alex can respect that. 

 

Alex aches for the girl beside her-- how it seemed that all the good about her was turned into something her parents would use against her. 

 

With her thoughts straying to her own mother and  _that_  neverending well of pressure and disappointment, she thinks she can feel for the first-year.

 

She reaches out and gives Lena’s shoulder a squeeze, helping the girl up to her feet when Kara emerges from the Hufflepuff basements. 

 

/ / 

 

Kara has a hard time using her wand. 

 

Having an advanced skill set in the use of wandless magic, the object only intensifies the most elementary of spells, and Kara usually finds herself having trouble controlling the amount of magical energy she’s casting with her wand. 

 

Alex thinks this power is good-- it’ll help Kara protect herself when Alex can’t. However, when her little sister is periodically being sent out of her Defense class for multitudes of reasons, the power is wasted with little knowledge on how to use it. 

 

So, of course, Alex takes it upon herself to help the girl. 

 

After curfew, when the castle is silent, and the prefects are roaming the halls, Alex sneaks her little sister out to the Quidditch fields, her dad’s old broom in one hand and a hexed bludger in the other. 

 

Standing in the center of the field, Alex places the ball on the ground. 

 

“So I found this spell in the library,” she begins slowly. Kara blinks up at her in anticipation. “In short, this bludger is going to come after me at an insane speed once it’s been ‘activated’, and it’ll only stop if you stop it. But if the spell uses too much magical energy, it’ll speed up.”

 

Kara’s eyes widen and she gapes at her older sister as she’s mounting her broom. 

 

“Wait, Alex, you know I can’t-”

 

Alex shakes her head and stops her sister with a lifted hand and a small, hopefully encouraging smile.

 

“ _Yes_ , you can, Kara. I trust you.”

 

Alex places her hand on the smaller girl’s shoulder and ruffles her hair slightly. She mounts her broom, ready to take off when Kara places a hand on her forearm in another attempt to halt the activity.

 

“What happens if-”

 

“Nope. No. Stop.  _It won’t_.” She stresses the last words with a reassuring look, and her sister shifts her glasses up and twists her fingers in response. 

 

She truly does believe her words. After all, Kara’s got it all in her, she just needs a little push-- and Alex doesn’t mind if that ‘push’ includes the risk of her own health. Even if they wouldn’t get any results tonight, she would happily put herself on the line time and time again if it meant the succession of her sister. Physical well-being be damned-- Kara is worth more. 

 

Alex takes to the night sky and hovers half a mile off the ground. Extending her hand and whispering a small activation spell, the bludger springs to life, and Alex is racing away from it. Kara’s standing at the center, still, and she’s fumbling for her wand. 

 

Spells are thrown all around Alex, narrowingly missing her and the ball. The cool air is surrounding her, and despite her unwavering faith in her sister, she’s panicking, and the wind is being taken from her lungs, and she just can’t  _breathe._

 

Leaning forward, she dives down to gain speed and makes a lap around the field, the bludger hot on her trail, whizzing as it propels itself forward. The wind is whipping her hair around and pushing her glasses uncomfortably up the bridge of her nose. Alex swears that after tonight, she’ll cut all of it off and invest in contacts. 

 

Kara’s not going to hit it. Not when the field’s too dark and the bludger is too unpredictable in its movements. Alex thinks she should’ve cast an illuminating spell before they’d started, but there’s no turning back now. 

 

Gritting her teeth, she turns as the corner fast approaches, flying close to the ground at this point, making her way to fly just over Kara. Her sister’s got one shot now, the bludger will only get faster and Alex’s only got so much more energy. 

 

“Kara, now!” She yells, angling the broom, and leading herself and the ball in direct sight of the younger girl. She hears her sister scream a spell, and she can almost feel the exertion Kara is giving off to perfect it. 

 

Behind her, she can hear the ball slowing down, the previous increase of whizzing and propulsion beginning to falter and become more uncoordinated. Kara’s done it, but Alex isn’t fast enough to curve away from the bludger’s path. She knows what’s about to come, so she screws her eyes shut and sets her jaw in anticipation.

 

The bludger hits her square on the back and falls to the ground with her, the heavy weight of the ball helping it reach the bottom of the field much quicker than Alex’s body. 

 

Alex hits the sand with a loud thud and a sickening crack, her back aching and her arm bent. There’s not a single area of her person that she could point to and not feel pain emitting from. Still, as Kara’s running towards her, Alex is laughing with joy. Because even though she’s just earned herself two days in the hospital wing, and a lifetime of favoring her left hand-- her sister did it. 

 

There’s a giddy feeling coursing through her body, spreading through every cell and latching itself onto her very consciousness-- the only thing that’s keeping her from passing out. Alex lets out a cheer. 

 

Her happy laughter can be heard echoing in the darkness. 

 

/ / 

 

Alex walks into her Defense Against the Dark Arts class with her right arm in a sling and her knapsack delicately balanced on a bandaged shoulder. She’s doing a lot more hobbling than walking, as a matter of fact. 

 

Lucy Lane, a Gryffindor that Alex has been taken to spending time with, eyes her with an incredulous look.

 

“You look like shit.” 

 

Alex lets out a sarcastic laugh and rolls her eyes, “Flattery.”

 

That look is still on the other girl’s face, but there’s a teasing smile on her lips. 

 

“Honesty,” Lucy winks and pulls out a seat for the struggling girl silently. 

 

/ / 

 

The summer is drawing near, and Alex is sitting by the Great Lake studying for finals when Maggie approaches her for the first time in months. 

 

“Danvers!” The Hufflepuff calls out, waving as she runs to sit next to Alex. Her grin is there, stretching wide across her features-- it’s the grin that Alex loves. “It’s been a hot minute.”

 

Maggie looks more composed than she had their last meeting, and happier too. Taking one look at her, Alex realized she had missed Maggie so, so much.

 

Smiling at her presence, Alex closes her Herbology textbook and puts it aside. 

 

“How’ve you been?”

 

“As of last week, really good. I, um. I spoke to Eliza last week and she’s letting me stay over for a few weeks in the summer.”

 

Maggie says the words with a grin, but Alex hardens at them. She had come to the definitive conclusion that Eliza’s no good; whatever it was she was doing kept hurting Maggie, and no way in hell is that okay with Alex. Still, Maggie’s happy and speaking to her again, and it’s selfish, but Alex holds her warning to herself. She just wants time to be with her friend again.  

 

“Great.” Alex grinds the word out, and Maggie, in her haze of glee doesn’t notice how Alex almost chokes on it. 

 

“I’ll tell you all about it when it all goes well. And it  _will_. I mean, probably.” Maggie says it like she’s trying to convince herself of the fact-- determined, with a crinkle in her eyebrow and triumph in her eyes. She winks at Alex before her previous emotion is exchanged for sincere remorse.

 

“I’m, uh… I'm sorry I’ve been a shit friend lately. There was some stuff I needed to wrap my head around, and that’s nowhere near an apology, but I swear to you, this summer is going to change…  _everything_. But, uh. Are, um… are we okay?”

 

Of course they were. They always will be, at least, to Alex they will. Alex thinks this is dangerous, her unwavering loyalty to her friend. She wants to embrace this trait, she wants so badly to be able to. But she can't quite get rid of the overwhelming amount of fear that comes with it. Because no matter what, she’ll always be there for Maggie, but she wasn't so sure that she, herself, was someone Maggie could stand to keep around devoid of circumstance. In as little as two years, Maggie has entered into her system, just as prominent in her veins as her blood. These past months have only solidified what Alex feared-- she could no longer live without her friend. Even more so, she doesn’t think she’d want to.

 

But, she's scared. She’s pretty sure she always will be. 

 

Still, she was hooked on the girl like the very green that stuck to her robe, and so, shaking away the thoughts, she smiled.

 

“Of course.”

 

Maggie beams, a grateful expression on her face. She tilts her head when she spots the textbook Alex had discarded. 

 

“Was that Herbology you’re studying for?”

 

/ /

 

“You’re beginning to favor your right foot.”

 

Alex stops and hovers from where she is in the sky, and looks down at her dad. Jeremiah had been teaching her new techniques on his old brooms all summer long, training her for her attempt towards the Quidditch team in the fall. 

 

“It’ll be obvious to beaters. Fly out like that onto the field and they’ll send bludgers right to it-- after all, that’s the only way they could slow you down.” 

 

He finishes the sentence with a reassuring wink, and motions for her to fly down. 

 

“Lean with your body and stick close to the base of the broom. Use your hands to guide the broom into sharp turns instead of pushing back on your feet.”

 

Alex hovers in front of her dad and practices the forms. Just as he’s instructing her back into the sky, her mom is poking her head out of the back porch, a letter in hand. 

 

“An urgent from the Ministry.”

 

Her dad pushes up from the ground and turns to give Alex a smile. 

 

“Keep off that foot, kiddo.”

 

Alex dismounts, stumbling as she hurries to run after her dad. 

 

“Wait!” She manages to catch his arm. Images of the recent news articles and the bloody photographs they’ve published about the dark wizards committing acts of terror in Lex’s name rush through her mind, and she has to fight with herself to get out the rest of her words. 

 

“It’s about Lex Luthor, isn’t it?”

 

A flash of panic crosses her dad’s features. Quickly schooling his face, he kneels down to her height, hands on her shoulders, that easy smile of his on his face. 

 

“You don’t have to worry about it. Not until you’re older. Take care of your sister, yeah, Alex?” He pulls her into a hug and Alex melts into her dad’s strong frame. 

 

Jeremiah leaves after another short goodbye and a playful salute. 

 

Alex can’t help but think she’s got a lot to worry about when she’s older with how much she hears that phrase. She doesn’t want to have to wait until then, but from the look on her dad’s face at the mention of the dark lord, she begrudgingly admits she may not be ready for what the Ministry is censoring from the papers. 

 

She wonders if she’ll spend a lot of time worrying about that balance in her life- her thirst for the unknown for the sacrifice of her naivety. 

 

/ / 

 

Alex is awoken in the middle of one night to Kara running around their room, frantic as she rummages through their desks. A small desk lamp is all that’s providing the room with light, and it’s angled away from Alex’s bed. 

 

Groggy, Alex sits up and calls out to her sister. 

 

“The stars.” Her sister says. “I-I hadn’t paid any attention to them last year, but they’re different from Krypton’s. They aren’t as bright.”

 

She watches as the younger girl pulls out a sheet of legal-sized paper and, shaking, begins to stipple Krypton’s sky onto it. She pauses after a small moment. 

 

“I don’t remember them, Alex. Not all of them. I  _can’t_.” 

At this point, Kara isn’t talking about the stars-- Alex knows this. She’s referring to each and every wizard, witch, and werewolf in her community; each and every one of them that had their stories cut short by the anger of a group of hateful people; each and every one of them who now only live on through her memory. 

 

Alex’s heart breaks at her sister’s tone. She’s angry at the universe for allowing such misfortune and hatred to fall upon a small child who should only know of love and kindness. She gets out of bed and makes her way over to Kara, pulling the little girl into her chest. Kara reciprocates the hug, immediately leaning into her older sister’s warmth. 

 

“You don’t have to, Kar. They’re inside of you. They all are. And they always will be.”

 

/ / 

 

Maggie is back in Nebraska. Alex could tell from the postage of the last letter she’d received. 

 

For the first week of summer, Maggie had spent the vacation at Eliza’s, and Alex had received letters with photos of the two girls as well as Maggie’s nervous rambling. Whatever Maggie was nervous about, however, she had yet to disclose. 

 

Maggie’s latest letter had described that she had left Eliza a note to find in her house, telling her whatever it was she so badly needed to say, and now eagerly awaits the other girl’s response back at her own home in Nebraska. She sounded happy in her words, and Alex couldn’t help but feel excited for her, despite her own feelings about Eliza. 

 

Alex encouraged her friend, the anticipation of finally knowing what was going on egging her actions. She wrote back with a pep talk and sent an owl off to deliver the message. 

 

Alex waits two weeks before she starts panicking, and it’s really a great feat in itself for her to wait that long. By then, she’s already perfected the new flying drills her dad shared with her at the beginning of the summer and finished an impossibly hard Lego set with Kara. 

 

The next day, Alex receives a return note with the parcel that she’d sent out before, the seal untouched and the letter slightly banged up from the two-way trip. The small note that returned with the letter, in what was decidedly  _not_  Maggie’s handwriting, that asked Alex not to write to the address again, only served to stoke her panic. 

 

Despite the request, she spends the summer writing letter after letter to her friend-- some detailing her days, some plain rambles, and some sounding downright hysterical-- only to get them all back, unopened, a week after they’d been sent.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr! I'm @superxbat over there. 
> 
> Anywho, I'm honestly having so much fun writing this and the comments and reactions I got in the first chapter just made it all the better. This being the first piece of fanfic I've ever written, I'd just like to thank you all for being so kind and encouraging. I get why fanfic authors write now. Thank you all so much and I hope you'll be willing to stick around with this story :) Have a nice day!


	3. Third Year / / 2002-2003

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very, VERY badly edited. I just gave it one last read-through and ran it through Grammarly, so please, if there's a part that doesn't make sense or is just so horribly unreadable, tell me and I shall fix :) This one's way more plot-heavy than the other two, so it'll mark a turning point in the story that'll set the rest of it off. Without further ado, here y'all go. This chapter starts with some expositional dialogue, because who doesn't love that.

“Have you noticed anything different about Maggie lately?”

 

Her sister swallows down her bite of food, eyebrows furrowing, “How do you mean?”

 

The question had been on Alex’s mind from the moment she saw Maggie on the train platform. The older girl was carrying a case way too small to practically fit enough things for the school year, and there seemed to be a different type of luggage weighing her down.

 

“I don’t know… Like, she’s been so different lately, ever since the start of the term, really, and she didn’t write back during the summer.”

 

“Well, she did apologize and say she moved in with her aunt. Her address changed.”

 

“And you really believe that her parents just… sent her off to her aunt’s for an extended vacation? From Blue Springs to _Beatrice_?”

 

“Alex,” Kara starts, giving her sister a small smile. “it’s _Maggie_ and it’s _you_. An extended vacation to a tree farm would be more plausible than her lying to you.”

 

Alex wrings her hands together and repeatedly clenches her teeth.

 

“She…” A pause, and then much quieter, “she won’t talk to me anymore.”

 

“What’re you talking about? You guys spent all yesterday down by the Lake.”

 

“N-no, like… she won’t _talk_ to me anymore.” Alex reiterates, stressing her words.

 

Kara tips her head to one side, raising an eyebrow at her sister. Alex huffs and looks down, prodding at her pancakes.

 

“Nevermind…” she mumbles, pushing around a melting dollop of butter on the surface of her food. “I'm just… I'm worried about her, Kara. She's just… it's… she's _different_.”

 

Alex can’t even explain the phenomenon to herself, much less string it together in a coherent sentence to describe to her sister. Nonetheless, the change is there, and the closest word to illustrate it may be ‘different’, but it came nowhere close to what Alex observes.

 

Maggie is different, yes-- it showed in the way she was so cautious with just about everyone, even more so than what Alex had gotten used to in the previous years. Something had happened over the summer, and whatever went down has Maggie shedding her spontaneity and calculating everything down to the bone. She handles the most casual of interactions with the most meticulous scrutiny, and moves with a focused precision, but the thing is-- she hasn’t _changed_.

 

Maggie is still Maggie, if not a bit more reserved, as if hiding from something that wouldn’t quite leave her alone. Whatever it is, it’s so obviously bothering her, and Alex wants nothing but to help.

 

She just doesn’t know how to.

 

So she watches as her friend suffers silently, shying away from touch, comfort, and company. It’s when Maggie misses three Herbology classes in a week that Alex decides to intervene. She runs into Maggie at the library and drags the Hufflepuff away from her Potions homework.

 

“What’s wrong.” It’s a demand more than it is a question, but Alex carefully ensures there’s no malice in her tone.

 

Maggie’s guard goes up immediately, but she conceals it with an incredulous look of amusement and speaks with a carefully measured amount of humor in her voice, “I knew I was bad at Potions, Danvers, but I hadn’t realized that it was noticeable enough for you to drag me away from it.”

 

“Just… Just tell me. Tell me what’s wrong, Maggie.” Alex is desperate now, she can hear it in her own voice.

 

“Nothing’s wrong, Danvers.” This time, it’s said with a hint of a warning. And then a tad lighter, “But something will be if you keep distracting me from studying.”

 

“Maggie.” She levels her eyesight with the shorter girl, taking a moment to just stare at her friend. “What’s wrong.”

 

" _N_ _othing_.”

 

“Just tell me.”

 

Maggie lets out a little scoff, “Why do you need to know so badly?”

 

“So I can help you fix it! So I can help you get through it!”

 

Maggie clams up at the response, jaw clenching shut, eyes blazing with a new kind of fire. She takes a step back before she speaks, and she does it with her head tipped up, as if challenged, and with a renewed vigor in her tone.

 

“It’s not something you just go through and get over. It… It’s just not like that. This isn’t something you can just _fix_ , Alex.” Maggie spits it all out with poison in her words.

 

Maggie is nearly vibrating with the amount of emotion she’s keeping in. Noting this, Alex takes a moment to calm herself and takes a different approach.

 

“Maggie… whatever it is, whatever’s happening, or going on-- it doesn’t change anything.”

 

“And how could you possibly know that?”

 

“Because…” A pause. “because nothing ever _could_. Because there is not one thing on this earth that could ever possibly change you enough to be someone I wouldn’t want to be around. You’re _you,_  Maggie Sawyer. You’re my best friend, and I’m sorry to break it to you, but I’m here through it all. So please, please tell me what’s wrong. And, Merlin, if it isn’t something fixable, then… fine. We’ll… We’ll, I don’t know, take it apart and rebuild it into something better. Just  _tell me_.”

 

Maggie purses her lips, shakes her head, and looks down to the ground, her voice hardly above a whisper, “It isn’t your job to fix, or rebuild anything for me, Alex.”

 

Now Alex is the one scoffing. “Yes it is. Of course it is.”

 

Maggie shakes her head and lifts it to glare up at the Slytherin. Her tone has an air of finality to it, “ _No,_ it isn’t.”

 

The shorter girl huffs and runs a hand through her hair, “I’ll see you later, Danvers.”

 

Maggie’s walking away before Alex has enough time to shake herself off and call after her.

 

Later that night, Alex is waiting in Maggie’s dorm for the girl to arrive, graciously let into Hufflepuff territory by one of Maggie’s roommates.

 

The orchids by Maggie’s bed have wilted, their stems bare, the petals of the flowers laying dormant by the soil of the pot. Alex wonders when Maggie let it get to the point, but doesn’t stick on the thought for too long.

 

Gently, she touches the stem of the orchid, gritting her teeth through a healing spell that gives the plant new life. Green buds appear in the place of the old ones, and for added measure, Alex murmurs a quick, _Aguamenti_. The water conjures in a small ball that curls itself around the inside of her palm, and Alex has to use her other hand to brace herself, as not to fall from the amount of energy the spell takes from her. The third-year is dropping the ball of water near the base of the plant and attempting to shake off the impending headache when Maggie walks in to see the action.

 

Maggie’s eyes widen in surprise, “How did you do that without-?”

 

Alex whips around to face the girl, immediately regretting the speed in which she’d done the action when it leaves her head swimming.

 

“I was just in here and saw your plant was just kinda-” She waves her hand toward the plant before waving the subject away. “Nevermind.”

 

Maggie eyes her cautiously before shutting the door to the dorm, “What’re you doing here, Danvers?”

 

She takes a seat by the edge of Maggie’s bed and pats the space next to her. The other girl takes it, walking up to Alex with small steps.

 

Settling to face her friend, she meets her gaze, holding it when Maggie tries to look away.

“I came here to apologize.” She takes a breath and a quick gulp, grounding herself by thumbing at the threading in Maggie’s sheets. “You’re right. It wasn’t my place to push you. You don’t want to tell me? Fine. But you don’t have to be guarded around me, okay? I’m not here to judge you for whatever happened. I’m here to help you heal.”

 

Maggie takes a breath at these words, and Alex takes another pause, using the small moment of silence to study her friend. With a shaking hand, she reaches out and tucks a strand of Maggie’s hair back in an attempt of comfort, smiling when the other girl doesn’t flinch away. The tips of her fingers tingle as she repositions to cup one side of Maggie’s face and Alex resists the urge to shift closer.

 

“And Maggie, it may not be my job to fix anything, but there’s no way in hell you could stop me from being here to try and cheer you up. It’s just scientific fact.”

 

Alex shrugs, feigning indifference at the words and lets a small smile spread across her face. She says that final piece as if she’s saying a prayer, and she knows full well that the truth the phrase holds might as well be just as powerful.

 

She watches as Maggie crumbles under her gaze, and lets herself be pulled forward into a hug. The smaller girl is shuddering against Alex and her grip is enough to steal the breath from Alex’s lungs, but she can’t bring herself to pull back, so she settles in and buries her hands in the fluff of Maggie’s sweater instead.

 

/ /

 

The rain is coming down hard that weekend and most of the castle dwellers are confined inside, huddling around common room fires, and bustling and crowding the Great Hall. Those who think themselves brave enough-- Slytherins daring Slytherins, Gryffindors dragging studying Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs skipping around in the forming puddles-- venture outside and risk being caught by a disgruntled Filch carrying an equally disgruntled Mrs. Norris.

 

Alex is dragging Maggie along the halls of the castle and into the heavy pour. The older girl follows, sulking behind her friend with an admirable attempt to put a skip in her step.

 

“Where are we going, Danvers?”

 

Alex waves the question away with a grin, “Don’t worry, you’ll love it. Now come on, I’ve got Peeves to agree to distract Filch over by the Quad. That should give us enough time to go sneak out to the Lake.”

 

Maggie raises an eyebrow, impressed. “How'd you get him to agree to _that?_ ”

 

“I may or may not have promised to tell him about some inter-house relationship between a Hufflepuff and a Slytherin.”

 

“Which inter-house relationship?”

 

“Don’t know-- haven’t made one up yet.” At this, Maggie lets out a small laugh, but it’s enough for Alex to inwardly preen.

Together, the two trudge their way through the now-swampy area surrounding the lake, following old muscle memory to make their way to the cave they’d found the start of their first year. The inside is dry enough, slightly damp near the entrance, where their carving stands proud to welcome them back, but the cavern is deep enough that they’re able to find a space to evade the downpour. The larger problem is the temperature, which Alex completely forgot to account-- it’s freezing, there’s cold air bouncing around the equally cold rock walls and she’s starting to see why this may not have been the best place to do this.

 

Once they’ve settled, resting their backs to the far end of the cave, Alex rocks forward onto her knees and takes off her long coat, laying the wet area to face the ground.

 

“Madame,” she gestures jokingly to the makeshift blanket with a flare of extravagance.

 

Maggie looks at her like she’s grown a third eye and protests, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms tight around them.

 

“You’re crazy if you think we can both fit on that.”

 

“You’re small, we’ll figure something out.”

 

Maggie gives her a fixed look, though there’s a hint of amusement tugging on the edges of her lips. With an exaggerated sigh, Maggie moves to position herself next to Alex, though she’s angled as far away as she can be without actually being off of the coat.

 

Alex had come to notice that a lot lately-- while Maggie never flinched away from her touch, she never actively sought it for herself anymore, as if afraid of it being taken the wrong way. Respecting her need for distance, though not exactly understanding why it was needed, Alex forces herself not to shift closer and instead, tugs down the sleeves of her sweater to combat the cold.

 

“Did we come all the way down here to get rained on and stare at a wall then, Danvers?” Maggie jokes, moving to fold her hands on top of her stomach.

 

Alex rolls her eyes, though she knows Maggie can’t exactly see the action. “Just wait for it, Sawyer.”

 

It’s dark enough in the cave that she’s sure it’ll work, and there’s just enough light filtering in that she can still make out the silhouette of her friend by her side. Alex opens the palms of her hands and takes a breath in to concentrate. The sound of the rain pounding loudly outside the mouth of the cave provides her with a steady beat to focus on, and she uses the music and the company and her need to achieve her goal to anchor herself to the moment.

 

Under her breath, Alex mutters a spell, the same one she’s sure is used for the Enchanted Ceiling, and adds her own twist. Above them, the cavern roof disappears and in its place materializes Krypton’s night sky-- it’s stars shining and pulsing bright. Alex hopes that conjuring the effect would yield the same result when done for Maggie as it did when Alex had done it for Kara.

 

Beside her, Alex hears Maggie suck in a sharp breath and can feel Maggie clenching at her coat by the way it shifts slightly towards the Hufflepuff. The stars are swirling now, the same way they do in that Van Gogh painting Kara was entranced by during her first year with the Danvers’, but Maggie is staring wide-eyed at Alex instead of the scene above.

 

“Alex, how…” the rest of her friend’s question trails off as she openly gapes at the Slytherin.

 

“Kara likes seeing the sky from our bedroom. I figured out the spell for this one night over the summer after I found her crying over never seeing a Kryptonian sky again, so I looked into it-- and well, the sky’s the same everywhere, but apparently, Krypton had these abnormally high levels of nitrogen and pure oxygen in its region. Whenever the sun released these electron-filled particles, it would collide with the atmosphere and paint the sky like that one Muggle painter, Van Gogh. It has the same process as the Aurora Borealis, but the thin air of the mountain range tweaked it a bit. That’s why Kara thought the stars were brighter. She got so happy when I cast the spell over the summer. I could only keep the effect up for a few moments, but she was so excited, she couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night.”

 

Maggie is fixed on her words and Alex wishes she would look up because she can only hold the illusion for so long before she passes out from the pain the spell is hammering into her head.

 

“No, I meant-” Maggie gestures to Alex’s hands, pointing out the fact that they were indeed wandless.

 

Alex cracks a grin through the throbbing, not wanting to show Maggie just how much the simple spell is torturing her, “Gotta give that one to Kara too.”

 

Alex feels an aching at the back of eyes now, the pain spreading, her temples threatening to cave in, and her brain refusing to allow her heart to beat until she stopped with the magic-- but Maggie had shifted closer now and Alex’s heart is beating wildly all on its own and suddenly, the pain isn't anything she's worried about.

 

“Mags, look.” she jerks her head towards the ceiling, her voice soft, and finally,  _finally_ , Maggie turns to look up at the illusion again.

 

Alex is conjuring up the sky from that night at the Astronomy Tower, the image of the meteor shower forever ingrained in her memory. Above, streaks of bright white light fly across the apparition, racing across the expanse faster and faster, daring the others to match their pace.

 

“We can have infinite meteor showers,” Alex says, transfixed by the way Maggie is looking up at her work-- eyes full of wonder and a faraway emotion of despair. “Like that night your dad told us about.”

 

Alex is vibrating with magical energy, charged with a concentrated power, and she tells herself that that’s why Maggie gravitates towards her. Her despair grows larger at Alex’s words, a look of longing in her eyes combats a wonderstruck emotion for domination. The Hufflepuff, unable to tear her gaze away from the magic above her, trails a hand down the length of Alex’s arm. It’s an inquisitive action, one that has Alex feeling the spark of magic all too powerfully now. The illusion flickers, phasing in and out of stability at the touch, but Alex has never been more alert than she is at this moment. Alex knows Maggie feels it too, the magic dancing between them, because how can she possibly not when it’s all that’s invading Alex’s mind?

 

A loud crack of thunder echoing from the mouth of the cave reverberates throughout the space and its jarring enough that Alex is pulled from her concentration. The spell is broken, the mirage above the pair fizzling out to once again reveal the cavern walls-- but Maggie’s grasping at her hand now, grip tight, palms warm, and the Hufflepuff is still staring at the cavern ceiling as if the illusion were still there, and she’s got a haunted look in her eyes, but her presence alone is providing Alex with a different kind of renewed energy, and it's all too familiar with how Alex always feels with her friend, but it's linked to a new, heavier weight now, and Alex knows that it's got everything to do with whatever happened over the summer.

 

The darkness of the cave is illuminated by a flash of delayed lightning.

 

Winded, head pounding, lungs threatening to collapse, Alex curls her fingers to return the gesture and feels the pain ebbing away with a squeeze of Maggie’s hand.

 

/ /

 

Maggie tops off her glass of orange juice and Alex downs it as soon as the Hufflepuff lifts the pitcher away.

 

“Whoa. Slow down there, Danvers.” Her hand moves to steal the drink away from her friend, placing the glass away from Alex’s reach. “Can’t make the team if you’re dead before tryouts.”

 

“You’d make a great motivational speaker, Sawyer.”

 

Maggie winks at the comment and pushes some toast onto Alex’s plate, “I try.”

 

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Alex. You’ll be the best one out there, right along with Lena!” Kara beams through mouthfuls of food and nudges Lena with her shoulder.  

 

Alex grimaces as she watches her sister stuff a muffin nearly whole in her mouth, “Charming.”

 

Alex sits with her stomach churning, taking in the encouragement of her friends that didn’t seem to be helping her feel any better. She’s dressed in Slytherin practice robes that’d been handed to all those who wanted to try out for the Quidditch team, and she can swear she’d picked a size too small because of how the robes hung off her body in the most uncomfortable way. A seat away from her, Lena doesn’t look much better. The second-year had taken to fiddling with her utensils rather than actually using them to eat, and she looks like she’s about to pass out.

 

Alex shifts and tugs the collar of her robes away from her neck.

 

Noticing her restlessness, Kara looks over with a small, encouraging smile. The younger girl rests her hand on her sister’s knee and pats it with affection, “You’re gonna do great, Alex.”

 

“And we’ll be right in the stands cheering you and Lena on. You’ve got this, Danvers.”

 

Down at the pitches, Alex and Lena stand in a group fellow housemates consisting of another third-year, two fifth-years, and two six-years. With only two open spots on the active team and one for the reserve team, Alex balks once again at her chances.

 

She spots Kara and Maggie in the stands easily, as they’re one of the only people who came out this early to watch tryouts. Kara waves at the pair and Maggie shoots her a quick smile and a thumbs up.

 

Grounding herself in their faith, she nudges Lena with her shoulder.

 

“You good, Lena?”

 

She hears Lena gulp and sees her jerk her head in a nod.

 

Taking a steadying breath, Alex tightens her grip on her dad’s broomstick and rolls her shoulders back.

 

“Let’s do this then.”

 

/ /

 

She gets drafted into the team. Maggie’s right there with her when she reads her name off the roster, right _there_ just above Lena’s, and feels the older girl clap her on the back and squeeze her arm.

 

“Didn’t doubt it for a second,” Maggie assures.

 

It takes a moment for Alex to snap out of her reverie and actually process the events, but when she does, she’s running off back to the Slytherin dorms, Maggie following close to her heels, to write about the news to her dad.

 

/ /

 

Her first Quidditch game is canceled the morning of and it becomes clear as to why when the owls fly in and drop off the paper.

 

There’s page after page of news concerning the wizarding world, but a beat of silence passes through the filled Hall as everyone looks upon the cover story:

 

**_Pro-Pure-Blood Activists Succeed In Recent Protests. Lex Luthor Released to the Public, Free of Charge._ **

 

_Alexander Joseph “Lex” Luthor, who has, in the recent years, emerged as a major player in the field of Research of Magical Creatures, was arrested and held for trial in 1999 after the morality of his research went under scrutiny._

 

_The wizard’s research went under questioning after rumors of involuntary half-breed testing in his laboratories were proven to be true. Taking into account his personal and political views on half-breeds, his family’s history of prejudice, and his known practice of the Dark Arts, Luthor was taken into custody and sentenced to life in Azkaban during his trial in the latter half of 1999. Having gained a wide audience for his research during the years it was brought to light, this group of followers has committed hate crimes under his name since his arrest, some to unbelievable extremities-- namely, the devastation of the wizard-werewolf community, Krypton._

 

_Continued protesting and advocating for the continuation of the pure-blood’s research grew from a select audience over the past few years, and with his sentence, have only grown more violent. With pressure from his followers, those in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement reviewed the wizard’s case and found that the evidence that had served to prosecute Luthor was one that had been tampered with. Due to this, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement declared a mistrial and 2001 marked the beginning of Luthor’s retrial._

 

_When Prosecution confronted him about the hate crimes committed under his name, Luthor only claimed he had no actual hand in said crimes but was unclear whether or not he aligned himself with them. With no solid evidence against him, pro-pure-blood activists pushed for his release, and the Ministry did just that this morning despite the disapproval of Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt._

 

_When asked to share his thoughts on the trial and of Mr. Luthor, the Minister advised caution, saying he believes this situation can quickly slip into one concerning a Dark Lord. Reformists who helped in the reformation of the Ministry in 1998 and those who are against pro-pure-blood laws already categorize the wizard as such._

 

A harsh set of whispers fill the Great Hall and Alex’s eyes immediately go to Lena. As she had expected, the younger girl, brandishing green and silver robes as her brother once did, is burning red-- either from anger, disappointment, or something entirely different, Alex couldn’t tell. Kara’s sitting right next to her, a hand on the other girl’s knee and a concerned eye focused on her friend.

 

At the end of the Hall, Headmaster J’onzz walks in, making his way towards Kara and Lena. He’s leaning in to say something and Alex can see the bright flashes of emotion in Lena’s eyes. The Slytherin follows him out with her head slightly lowered, and they almost make it through the doors before her sister is running after the pair and attempting to glare up at J’onzz. The Headmaster looks as though he’s about to protest, but Lena’s looking at Kara with notable relief, and, noticing this, the Headmaster sighs and herds both of them along.

 

Alex makes a move to go after them, worried about her sister and, undeniably, Lena, but Maggie’s stopping her with a hand on her arm, a shake of her head, and a look of relatability as she stares at Lena’s retreating figure.

 

/ /

 

“Alex?”

 

The timid whisper comes from the foot of her bed, and Alex is jostled awake by someone shaking her. Blearily squinting into the darkness, she feels for the glasses by her bedside table and pushes them onto her face. Adjusting to the low light, she spots her sister-- nose slightly running, eyes red and puffy, slightly shivering.

 

The sight is enough to expel the fatigue from her body, and Alex rushes to her sister’s aid.

 

“Merlin, Kara, what happened?”

 

Kneeling on the mattress in front of the younger girl, Alex immediately going to check her for any physical abrasions. Finding Kara free of visible injury, she ushers the younger girl into her bed, wrapping her sister up in the warmth of her covers. Immediately, Kara curls up, bunching the linens around her fist, absentmindedly squeezing it in counts of four, eight, sixteen, then back to down to four.

 

“I had another dream,” Her sister’s voice is small and there’s a croak to it that makes her speech sound an octave lower. “The same one as before.”

 

A cold shiver runs down Alex’s spine as she recalls Kara’s first few weeks with the Danvers’, how Kara had woken the household and nearly the entire block with her terror-filled screams of werewolves and monsters in the night. With her eyes unblinking and fear stuck in her throat, Kara had recited the events of the dream to Alex, expressing every brutal detail of the nightmare-- how beasts had ripped their way into the consciousness of her friends and family, targeting her with murder in their eyes, dark witches and wizards cheering in victory in the background. The description alone had frightened the older girl, and Alex can’t fathom what going through that, no less, going through it _twice_ , would feel like.

 

“They were _family_ , Alex. All of them.” Kara buries her head in the sheets, her rhythmical breathing becoming staccato as she began reliving the events of that night. “And I only remember them as monsters.”

 

Kara began to scratch lightly at the edges of her scar, a habit the younger girl had taken up whenever she felt distraught. Alex goes to stop the action, tucking Kara into her side as she starts humming a quiet lullaby, unable to find the words to soothe her sister, not sure if there is any that could.

 

/ /

 

“He wanted to check in on me, just to make sure I’m okay. Or, that’s what he said, at least.”

 

“He meant it,” is Alex’s response. “He’s worked with my dad and is pretty close to him. J’onn is a good guy, you can trust him.”

 

Lena replies with a small shrug. Alex tilts her head, trying to catch the younger girl’s eye to no avail.

 

“You can trust me too. Kara and I, we’ve got your back. You know that, right?” Her voice is soft, but it carries sincerity that she hopes Lena can pick up on.

 

“The paper said his stance was unclear, but he sides with them. Lex, that is. He agrees with everything those dark wizards did in his name.” The young girl’s eyes are unfocused and distant, and Alex stays silent, opting that listening would be much more lucrative than trying to talk in the moment. “You didn’t see him when he was doing his research, Alex. He was _obsessed_. He-h… Everything that came to light in his first trial was all real. I don’t know how he did it, but he’s tampered with his case. The only reason he’s out now is because he wants to be out. The attacks and the hate crimes-- those are only going to get worse.”

 

It’s only then that Lena looks up at Alex.

 

“You and Kara don’t deserve to be…” she pauses, furrowing her eyebrows to find the proper word. “ _exposed_ to all this. Not because of me.”

 

“Hate to break it to you, kid, but we’re already pretty damn invested. And there is no way we’re letting you go through this alone.”

 

/ /

 

The first Hogsmeade weekend is fast approaching, and Kara is constantly bugging Alex about getting her an assortment of goods from Honeydukes.

 

“Go through it again.”

 

Alex rolls her eyes at her sister’s antics and rattles off, “Pumpkin pasties, chocolate frogs, chocolate wands, and a few different flavors of lollipops.”

 

“Sugar quills, Alex. You forgot sugar quills.”

 

“And sugar quills.”

 

/ /  

 

The morning of the Hogsmeade trip, Alex finds her way to the Hufflepuff table at breakfast in search of Maggie. There are more restrictions placed on them this year, more chaperones assigned to watch over the students, and it’s no mystery why. Spotting her friend near an assortment of fruit bowls, Alex waves as she walks over.

 

“A full day of shopping for sweets for Kara and _maybe_ having a bit of time to check out Tomes and Scrolls. Should be inspired.” Alex exaggerates, sitting herself down in front of her friend and plucking an apple slice from Maggie’s plate. “You excited?”

 

The Hufflepuff barely looks up from her food, pushing around the melon balls with her fork with a, “Can’t go. There was a mix-up in the mail-- the permission form was sent to my parents instead of my aunt and I guess they forgot to send it back.”

 

“Oh.” Alex frowns at the news before shrugging and smiling at her friend. “Well, I’m sure they’ll have it sent over in no time, and until then, I guess I’ll be shopping for three people.”

 

At this, Maggie lets out a slight chuckle. Alex can hear a sort of thickness in her voice, and her eyes are slightly red and puffy.

 

“Thanks, Danvers.”

 

/ /

 

On the day of her first _actual_ Quidditch match, Alex wakes up early to take a walk around the pitches, wrapping herself in a thick coat and a scarf to battle against the biting chill of the early morning.

 

Stepping out onto the field, she kicks at it and tries to ground herself in this moment-- when the pitches are silent, the distinct scent of dew still lingers, and the grass squishes slightly as she paces across it-- as not to get overwhelmed later in the day when the pitches will be filled with screaming teenagers.

 

The castle looks miniscule from where she stands, and Alex can’t help but feel something similar to serenity out all alone. She lies down at the center of the pitches, tugging her scarf off and using it as leverage for her head as she stares at the sky. The stars had retired for the night and above her, faint hues of orange and pink tint the cosmos.

 

Alex makes her way back to campus and into the Slytherin Dorms when the first flicker of light from the castle makes itself visible.

 

The match is Slytherin against Hufflepuff and the group is pretty much split down the middle.

 

Alex prepares herself for the game by swapping her glasses for contacts and strapping on some Quidditch-appropriate guards.

 

At breakfast, Kara tries to stick a helmet onto her head, saying something along the lines of, _looking cool doesn’t protect you from head-injury, Alex_ , and Alex relatilates with a deadpan expression and threatens to stop buying her sweets from Hogsmeade for the rest of the year. Dejected, Kara grumbles and stalks off, leeching onto Lena and redirecting her efforts onto her friend.

 

At the gates, Maggie pulls her aside and into some relatively concealed corner. Clad from head-to-toe in yellow and black, her friend looks like the physical embodiment of the Hufflepuff Badger.

 

Alex shoots her an incredulous look, to which Maggie returned with a full-blown grin.

 

“Did a badger _throw up_ on you?” Alex teases.

 

Maggie looks down to her apparel with a slight smirk, “This is all from Kara. She’s helping disguise me.”

 

“Disguise you?”

 

“So no one from Hufflepuff will look at me funny when I’m cheering every time Slytherin scores.”

 

Leaning in, Maggie moves close enough that Alex can feel the girl’s warm breath against her ear (and in return, feel her own breath falter) and in a conspiratorial whisper, she says, “I’ll be rooting for you, Danvers.”

 

The Hufflepuff pushes away with a wink when Alex’s teammates flood in.

 

“Good luck out there, Danvers.”

 

Alex convinces herself the erratic beating of her heart is due to the adrenaline.

 

/ /  

 

There’s one second-year from Hufflepuff that seems intent on cobbing Alex off of her broom, no matter how much of an illegal move it may be, but she evades the offender everytime the Quaffle is in her possession. She performs more assists than she tries scoring, it being her first game and the team consisting of a group of those in upper years (besides Lena), she doesn’t want to impose or step on anyone’s toes.

 

However, not before long, Lena’s shooting towards the Snitch and Alex is using the back end of her broom to score, ending the match with a significant lead to her house.

 

The crowd erupts in cheers and Alex gives Lena a smile and a nod when the two share a look.

 

/ /

 

The holiday season springs up before Alex really has any time to process its rapid approach, and soon, the snow is sticking to the castle grounds, blanketing Hogwarts in a thick, pillowy layer.

 

“What’re you doing for the holidays?”

 

The Hufflepuff shrugs in response, tugging her scarf tighter around her. “Staying here, probably.”

 

Alex tilts her head to one side, eyebrows furrowing, “Your parents are cool with that?”

 

“They, um, took a vacation to Florida for the season. Florida isn’t really my thing so I told them I’d opt out.” Maggie says the sentence without lifting her gaze from a lone blade of grass fighting the change of weather, her voice sounding slightly disconnected.

 

“Oh. Okay. What about your aunt?”

 

“She doesn’t really have the funds to fly me out right now or the magical blood to Apparate me to Nebraska so…”

 

“Well…” Alex pauses. “You should come spend the break with me then.”

 

At her words, Maggie snaps her head up, her expression showing just how confused she is.

 

“What was that now?”

 

“Come to California with Kara and I. It’ll be no trouble for my parents.” Alex shrugs, extending the offer easily.

 

“Oh I… I can’t intrude like that, Danvers. I’ll be fine here, honest.”

 

“Yeah well, I _won’t be_ fine if you’re here,” Alex retorts jokingly. “Come on, Sawyer, it’ll be great. There’ll be a Menorah and a Christmas tree-- one for each commercialized cultural tradition. Well… excluding Kwanzaa. You don’t even have to participate if you don’t want to, just come for the presents and the food. I’ve been told from a very credible source that my mom makes the best chocolate pecan pie.”

 

By the end of her piece, a group of upperclassmen walks past them, one of which-- Eliza Wilke. Alex watches as Maggie stiffens at the sight of the other girl and hermits herself by burying deeper into her coat. Noticing this, Alex shifts closer to her friend, slightly angling her body to be able to shield Maggie if need be. The moment comes and goes in the same minute, but Alex notices how the nervousness in Maggie’s posture linger.

 

“Hey, Maggie?” Alex starts, her voice low. “That thing, the one that happened over the summer, did Eliza… did she do anything to you?”

 

Maggie jerked her head, “No. It was me. It _is_ me. It’s…”

 

The Hufflepuff huffs in anger, but Alex can tell it’s not directed at her.

 

“Just… Can we just forget it?”

 

Alex agrees, nodding slowly. “Alright. We can do that. I-I was serious about that offer though.”

 

Maggie blinks up at her, and around them, the wind starts to pick up.

 

“It won’t be a problem to anyone, and you won’t be intruding, I swear. Just come over, have some pie, and we can just forget about everything. It’ll be great.”

 

“I-um… I really can’t ask you to do that, Danvers.” Maggie mumbles, softer than before.

 

“You’re not asking for anything, I’m offering. You can even light the first candle or put the star on the tree if you want.”

 

/ /

 

There’s a significant amount of reversion that Maggie goes through as the holiday break gets closer, and before Alex can help with it, her friend is closing herself off and dodging everything the way she did in the beginning of the year.

 

Alex could chalk it up to the upcoming midterms that professors were adamant to give before students were all sent free, but Alex knows it’s more than that-- a deeper sense of emotion that never truly left Maggie in the first place, but instead, that the girl learned to hide away and conceal so well.

 

And Alex is pretty sure that she’s pinned down why.

 

Alex waits for the right moment to bring it up, and it comes to her a week later just after she, Kara, and Maggie are waiting for her parents at the train platform.

 

The place is loud, yet not so crowded as it would normally be, and Maggie is clutching at the handle of her luggage with a sort of concealed nervousness. Alex nudges her gently on the shoulder, equipped with a smile, offering her silent support. It’s only a few minutes of waiting before Kara’s frantically waving at someone in the distance with a big grin on her face and Alex’s turning around to see her parents walking towards the trio.

 

Greetings are exchanged, introductions are set into play, and it goes much smoother than what Alex had already thought. As soon as salutations have dwindled, Alex’s parents are interlocking hands with the trio and Apparating them to California.

/ /

 

Half a week passes and every opportunity Alex sees springs up and burrows down just as quickly. It’s a few days of this before Alex figures the timing really doesn’t matter, so she vows to do it tonight.

 

The first candle is lit and the last game of dreidel is played, and the girls are sent off to bed for the night. Kara had offered to take the guest room back during the first day so that Alex and Maggie could share their room for the holiday.

 

When the house is silent and she hears her parents retreating to their bed, Alex climbs out and goes to lay next to Maggie. She prods at the sleeping girl softly yet repeatedly until the other wakes. The Hufflepuff blearily opens her eyes then starts when noticing just how close Alex is. Maggie shifts slightly away from contact, a look of guilt on her face-- it’s that that solidifies Alex’s hypothesis.

 

“Danvers, what are you doing?” Maggie’s voice is soft, and the words are said in a whisper. Alex edges closer and it’s then that she begins to doubt herself.

 

Maggie is so adamant to keep everything to herself, and Alex respects her privacy, but she has to show the other girl that she supports her-- no matter what.

 

Pushing on, Alex opens her mouth to speak, eyebrows furrowing as she takes a moment to construct what she wants to say.

 

“Maggie, I… I don’t care if you’re gay.”

 

The other girl stiffens at her words and _oh_ , that’s _definitely_ not the response Alex had hoped for. She backtracks.

 

“I-I mean, I don’t _not_ care, I just… I meant to say that it doesn’t change anything. I promised you nothing would. And it doesn’t.”

 

Maggie drops her head down, though it doesn’t prevent Alex from seeing her red-rimmed eyes or her slight twitch. The smaller girl starts sobbing in the sheets, quietly, and Alex is reaching forward and comforting her as if the movement was ingrained in her muscles.  

 

“My dad, he… They kicked me out, Alex. They didn’t want me anymore. They _don’t._ ”

 

And suddenly, it all makes sense. Alex kicks herself for not seeing through Maggie’s excuses because while she had picked up on the larger part, she’d also somehow missed an entirely different issue. Her heart breaks as Maggie lets out a sob, but the emotion doesn’t stay for too long because no matter how much this new knowledge hurts her, it angers her more. Before she knows it, Alex is shaking right along with Maggie from the murderous thoughts that are going through her head, but she forces herself to steady as to provide her friend with something solid to anchor herself to.

 

“They’re… He’s a-” Alex pauses to take a breath and think about what she wants to say. “They’re idiots, Maggie. They’re missing out on getting to know the best person they could ever meet due to some fucked up idea about how everyone should be.”

 

Maggie takes a shaky breath and lifts her head.

 

“I know this because, _this?_ ” Alex points between the two of them. “This is something I’d never want to live without, something I never _could_. Your parents were wrong.”

 

She can feel when Maggie starts to shake her head, but Alex follows it with her own nod to solidify her claim. Her head is reeling from the proximity between the two of them, and Maggie is burrowing closer, not exactly crying anymore, but her body still racks with shivers.

 

Alex ignores the way her heart had skipped a beat at that earlier word-- ‘gay’-- and how it took everything in her to say it without wavering. She swallows down the indescribable feeling that linked the word to herself and grounds herself in the moment.

 

Angry, confused, and trying to bury it all, Alex hums a quiet tune, hoping that a poet’s words are better equipped to comfort her friend more than her own are.

 

/ /

 

Things go back to normal by the time the school term starts up again. They haven’t really spoken about that night, but the impact lingered and helped start a healing process of sorts.

 

Alex is sitting on Maggie’s comforter, waiting for the other girl to arrive with a broken Aviatomobile and a collection of tools in hand.

 

She’s tightening a loose gear when the door creaks open and Maggie startles seeing the Slytherin on her bed.

 

“Merlin, Danvers, that’s the third time this term. How are you even getting in without me?” Maggie drops her bookbag by her bed and flops down on the mattress.

 

“Oh please, I’ve stopped counting the number of times you’re just suddenly _in_ the Slytherin commons. Nevermind how I’ve stopped trying to figure out how you _always_ seem to know when the password changes.” She rolls her eyes and prods her friend with a screwdriver.

 

“Touché, mon amie. Touché.”

 

/ /

 

Later that week, Alex finds Maggie in the same position on _her_ bed.

 

The Hufflepuff is surrounding an unopened chocolate frog with a set of Wizard’s Chess pieces in a formation Alex has yet to see her try.  

 

“Why don’t you just… oh, I don’t know, get a toad from the store?”

 

Maggie scoffs, setting down a knight with a distinct motion, “That’s just ludicrous, Danvers.”

 

/ /

 

With news about Lex Luthor dying down, Alex pushes the worry about the Dark Lord away from her mind and refocuses her efforts on Quidditch.

 

From that first game against Hufflepuff, Slytherin had won three of the four games they had played, the loss coming from a debate-worthy last second score from a Ravenclaw Chaser as Lena was diving for the Snitch. The team had set dates for weekly practices, yet Alex felt as if it wasn’t enough to prove herself to her teammates.

 

It started one night when she couldn’t sleep. Alex had grabbed her broomstick, shoved her shoes on, and made her way down to the Pitches with nothing in mind. Idly flying around, it dawned on her that this, alone with nobody to interrupt, was one of the best times she could practice.

 

From then, she made a habit of sneaking out during dinner to practice some drills whenever she could, wandlessly setting off bludgers to chase after her and bewitching parts of the field with random wind currents to throw off her flight patterns. These practices never lasted very long. The effort to keep up multiple spells wandlessly took its toll on Alex’s energy and physical capacity, and those moments, though intense and certainly beneficial, were relatively short. For the rest of the time the castle is away at dinner, Alex would practice different flying maneuvers, trying to find ways to propel herself faster.

 

It’s maybe two months into this routine before she’s caught. That night, Alex hexed a bludger to continuously attempt to hit her off her broom, making sure she’s flying close to the ground in case it succeeded. After a game with Gryffindor the week before that ended with a heavily bruised arm from a well-aimed Beater, Alex had put more attention into figuring out evasive strategies, her already heightened speed assisting with her new focus.

 

“So this is where you’re always off to during dinner.”

 

The voice startles Alex enough that she nearly gets whacked in the head with the heavy lead ball. Wincing as she remembers her injuries last year from a Bludger, she stops her practice early and sticks her hand out to halt the object. The throbbing in her head that followed the spell was one that Alex was really getting rather used to.

 

Alex looks towards the source of the voice, finding Maggie standing by the Gates with an inquisitive look on her face. Breathing a sigh of relief that it’s only her friend, Alex flys down and dismounts, making her way towards the Hufflepuff.

 

“Is this how you’re exponentially getting better between every game?” Maggie’s teasing now, a grin on her face as she straightens up when Alex approaches.

 

Alex pfts and shakes her head in response. “This is how I’ll catch up to the skill level of my teammates.”

 

“As if you’re not already the best one on your team.”

 

“I don’t-”

 

“Take the compliment, Danvers. You’re an amazing player. Now, why are you out here in pitch darkness hexing a murderous ball to come after you? Isn’t that wandless stuff hard?”

 

“It’s worth the headache.” Is Alex’s response.

 

“You’re insane.” Even as she says it, Maggie’s pulling out her hand and waving Alex off with her other hand. Alex furrows her eyebrows in confusion. “Well I know there’s nothing I could say to make you stop, but what kind of friend would I be if I just going to stand here and watch you suffer through a migraine? Let me help you. This way, it also lowers the risk factor of you… well, dying during these late-night escapades.”

 

“You don’t have to-”

 

“I want to. Now get on your broom and show me just how bad at hexes I am.”

 

Alex’s routine changes from that night and she honestly doesn’t mind.

 

One session in the middle of heavy rains has Alex slipping off her broom dozens of feet from the ground and Maggie’s only able to stop her fall, somehow through her own panic, with a messy spell that leaves Alex with a snapped rib from its impact.

 

Nearly passed out from the pain, Maggie has to drag her friend, both of them sopping wet and shivering cold, through the castle and into the Hospital Wing in the dead of night.

 

When Alex wakes, she faces a reprimand from her Head of House. With every encounter last year with Cat Grant and now adding this set of broken rules, Alex knows she’s on very thin ice.

 

Still, Alex pushes herself to improve, changing her routine once again, this time, excluding Maggie from the narrative so the Hufflepuff won’t be linked to the delinquency, and sneaks out every night at an ungodly hour, save for when the weather just won’t let her, to mount her broom and practice both wandless magic and her Quidditch performance.

 

/ /

 

A month before final exams, Alex, Kara, and Maggie are sitting in the Quad, each with their own stacks of study material to accompany them.

 

Halfway through their study session, Kara stiffens and she’s got that look on her face that she gets every time she wants to cry. Noticing this, Alex lifts her head, immediately looking around to try and find whatever it was Kara may have heard around her that set her off. Her eye lands on a group of students huddled by the edges of the Quad, sitting in one of the alcoves of the castle walls and laughing at something one of them said, looking directly at her sister.

 

Blood boiling, Alex pushes herself up and makes her way toward the group. Knowing her sister, Kara scrambles to follow after and try to stop her. Maggie looks up from her work, head tilting, confused, but follows the duo anyway, though reluctant.

 

Alex stops in front of a burly Gryffindor fourth-year, crossing her arms and setting her jaw.

 

“What was that you were saying about my sister?” Alex says the question like a military command.

 

The boy, who had transferred from Durmstrang earlier that year, only smirks in response.

 

“See? What’d I tell you all. And here’s the dog’s owner come to defend the little half-breed.”

 

Alex lurches forward, brushing Kara off when the second-year tries to pull her back, and grabs at the boy’s shirt.

 

“Listen here-”

 

The Gryffindor grabs at her wrists, cutting her off with a shove hard enough to cause Alex to stumble back. “I really wouldn’t if I were you, Danvers. I hear you’re on _very_ thin ice with Professor Grant and well…”

 

He shrugs with a smirk, as if he’s already won, and around them, a group of students gathers, watching with unblinking eyes and bated breaths. Everyone in Hogwarts knew what happened if someone messed with Alex Danvers, and even more so, Alex Danvers’ little sister, and it was obvious that whatever was about to go down would be circling the rumor mill for a while.

 

At her silence, the Gryffindor accepts the achievement from his pals, who pat him on the back with loud cheers, and Alex is all too ready to screw her reputation to defend Kara-- her blood pumping hot in her veins, her eyes murderous-- until Maggie moves swiftly from her side, squares up in front of the boy, and decks him in the face for her. A collective gasp is shared from the growing crowd and the earlier cheers from the boy’s friends cease as the leading offender now clutches his already-swelling eye.

 

A professor is breaking up the conflict before the burly boy can retaliate (much to Alex’s relief) and taking off with Maggie and the boy (much to Alex’s protests).

 

Later that night, Alex is icing Maggie’s hand.

 

“How’s that feel?” She asks, repositioning the bag of ice on Maggie’s extended fist.

 

“Cold.”

 

Alex rolls her eyes at her friend, chuckling slightly.

 

“Thank you, by the way. Thanks for that. You didn’t have to do anything and yet… Just… yeah. Thanks.”

 

“Well… That kid, whoever he was, he used something you hold up, your reputation, and used it against you. It just… it made me _so_ mad, how he was so manipulative like that. And well, to be honest, you and Kara are something I wouldn’t mind bruising for.”

 

From that event, Maggie’s own reputation started to build and Alex would often hear rumors of how the vindictive Hufflepuff was going around fighting anyone who was bullying the little guy. She heard the whispers and saw the amount of bruising on her friend grow exponentially, but still found them hard to believe-- unable to see Maggie, the small girl who had once pledged loyalty to taking care of a plant, in that light.

 

It’s only when Alex witnesses it for herself that it dawns on her that _of course,_ Maggie wouldn’t hesitate to stand up for those who couldn’t.

 

Alex is making her way to lunch, using some route off of the main one, as not to bump into that undoubtedly large stream of people, when she sees Maggie push a Gryffindor first-year down the hall and take on the onslaught of an older boy who kicks her to the ground. The older kid races off in another direction when Maggie coughs up blood.

 

Hearing the echo of her groan snaps Alex out of her reverie, and she berates herself for not stepping in. Alex knows full well that the Hufflepuff could hold her own in a fight, but not when the girl’s got weeks of bruising and scarring already hindering her performance.

 

Maggie pushes herself off the ground and hobbles off down another hall, clutching her torso. Alex runs after her, following her into the girl’s restroom where she walks in to see Maggie sitting by the sinks, arguing with Moaning Myrtle.

 

“Merlin, Myrtle, are you ever goddamn helpful?” The Hufflepuff winces as she presses down on something that looks awfully like a badly set rib.

 

“That’s not very nice to say to someone who’s been feeding you healing spells for the past few weeks.”

 

“Yeah and where exactly have those gotten me…” Maggie grumbles.

 

“Maggie…” Alex calls from the entrance, her voice pained as she sees her friend’s torso covered in dark, angry splotches. At her voice, Maggie lifts her head and shoots Alex a sheepish grin, the pain ebbing from her expression.

 

“Hey, Danvers…” It’s an awful attempt to sound cheerful.

 

Wordlessly, Alex walks over, placing her hands on Maggie’s ribs. The Hufflepuff jerks in response, before groaning at the action, then trying to shift away once again.

 

“Danvers, w-what are you doing.” There’s an edge of… something in her voice that Alex just can’t place.

 

“Hold still,” Alex commands. She tries to take her own advice when her hands start shaking, her close proximity to the Hufflepuff not helping her case at all.

 

Alex starts muttering a healing spell under her breath, the one she had found was the least painful, and mushes on even when the resounding crack of Maggie’s rib resetting makes her want to flinch away. The bruises on her friend slowly disappear and Alex has never really tried this spell on another human before and Merlin, she already knows she’ll have to nurse this migraine for the next day or so.

 

Maggie takes a breath in, half a gasp, half of relief. She starts laughing once a beat passes through the three of them. Alex pulls her hand away, feeling the linger of the magic coursing through her.

 

“Christ, Danvers.” Maggie lets out a quick breath, grin wide. “That was amazing. This is the first time in weeks I’ve been able to _breathe_ properly. _Merlin_ , I could kiss you right now.”

 

Maggie says the words through a happy laugh, but Alex’s heart breaks at the meaning behind them. It pains her to see her friend like that, but it’s not like Alex holds any authority to judge those who get into fights for numerous amounts of reasons.

 

Alex punches her friend lightly in the stomach, Maggie’s contagious laughter causing her to smile.

 

“Ever think you were put into the wrong the house, Sawyer? Gryffindor would suit you just as well.” Alex says the words but hardly believes them herself. Maggie, though borrowing traits from all houses, was just so distinctively _Hufflepuff._ Above all, she was loyal to her beliefs-- though her methods in showing that weren’t particularly traditional.

 

“Yeah but Hufflepuff’s for the cooler kids.” Maggie winks, joking. Alex lets the moment settle before turning to her friend with a serious expression.

 

“I’m not going to ask you to stop.” Alex begins.

 

“I’m sensing a ‘but’...” Maggie winces.

 

“Promise me something, Sawyer. Just hex the assholes next time instead of punching them.”

 

/ /

 

The year fizzles off into the past and Alex is already looking forward to the summer, the term exhausting her more than she ever really processed.

 

Her mood dampens when she sees a copy of the Prophet in her train compartment on their way back home.

 

The past few weeks had marked the resurfacing of the pro-pure-blood and the anti-half-breeds movements and throughout the issues of the news have been opinion essays fighting for each side in different and alternating columns. The hateful rhetoric had divided the castle, and more so, Alex’s own house. It was only a few days ago when something concrete had happened in the movement-- Lex Luthor had abducted a young centaur from a community over in the woodlands of England. Opinion columnists had been calling the action a start to what was to come next, saying that it wouldn’t be long until disappearances like those reaching the multitude during that of the Second Wizarding War were to resurface. Needless to say, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was regretting their order of the dark wizard’s release.

 

Alex threw the paper aside and decided to forget about it for the time being, stretching out over the cushions of the compartment, leaving just enough room for Maggie, Kara, and Lena later in the day.

 

/ /

 

Lena had been right with her assumption that the hate crimes would only continue, if not worsen. Lex had only been waiting for the right time.

 

The summer starts off with a bang, Lex’s band only gaining more notoriety with continuous raids, always one step ahead of law enforcement. Her father is called out more and more, seemingly spending all his time at the Ministry now instead of home.

 

Alex catches him one day on his way out to work.

 

“Dad, wait.” She launches herself into his arms, squeezing tightly. Jeremiah chuckles against her, returning the gesture.

 

“You’re getting tall, kiddo. Won’t be too long now until you’re towering over me.”

 

“That’s scientifically impossible.” Alex mumbles into her dad’s embrace. “You’ll be careful, right?”

 

“Don’t worry about me, kiddo. People like this… they never win. Alright? He’ll never win. Not when there are people like you and your sister and your friends around, not when there’s still so much _good._ I’ll be home before you can perfect that layback snap on your surfboard.”

 

Alex pulls away with a grin, “Is that a challenge?”

 

“I’ll even put money on it.” Jeremiah leaves with a final, lingering hug and a wink.

 

Alex spends the week out on the beach with her surfboard because she’s nothing if not competitive as hell. Three days into her practice, Jeremiah’s still not home, which isn’t worrying in it of itself, he’s been gone for longer periods-- what’s worrying is how she comes back from the beach and finds J’onn in her living room, sitting with Kara and Eliza by him.

 

The question on the tip of her tongue is answered when she reads the headline on the copy of the Prophet on the coffee table.

 

**Ministry of Magic Raided. Auror and Advocate of Muggle-Wizard Integration, Jeremiah Danvers, Missing.**

 

Alex runs back out just as quickly as she’d walked in, ignoring the calls that come after her, fighting to keep her mind calm. She makes the trek to the beach in record time, mounts her surfboard, and paddles out to sea-- past where the water breaks and beyond the final buoy. She pushes on further and further, not caring about the tide or which direction she's heading in, her thoughts occupied with one singular thing-- escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As stated before, this was very hastily edited, so I'm really sorry about that. I was writing the last scene (and by "last scene" I mean that scene where Alex takes Maggie to the cove by the Great Lake and stuck somewhere that's definitely not the end because what's a chronological timeline anyway) and it just really wasn't working out for me-- that one's admittedly the weakest scene in this chapter. Writing is hard.
> 
> Thank you all for reading and being so supportive! Have a nice day!


	4. Fourth Year / / 2003-2004

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit... choppier than the others, if it sucks, tell me and I'll fix it up. I've got a few things to address plot and story wise, but I'll save it for later, for now, enjoy the product of my caffeine-induced brain! But hey look! The story's halfway done! *chorus of Living on a Prayer blasts*
> 
> Hope you like it!

 

Kara flits around her all summer, cautiously prodding and poking at Alex after she had come back dripping and shivering in the pale light of early morning. 

 

Kara wants to talk about it, that much is obvious. Alex, on the other hand, does not. She spends the rest of the summer pouring herself over the books in her dad’s office, trying to find any way to somehow connect with him, silently mourning her father in hurriedly wiped away tears and old photos. 

 

After an hour on the train platform, Alex is pretty much sure every witch and wizard is aware of the news surrounding her family-- despite its decline in urgency in the Prophet. 

 

(Front-page headlines with **_Jeremiah Danvers, Auror and Advocate of Muggle-Wizard Interaction Still Missing. New Clues on the Case._ ** turned to footnotes barely detailing her father’s disappearance by the end of summer-- new news deeming the absence irrelevant.)

 

On the platform, Alex is met with quickly averted glances when she so much as turns to look towards someone’s direction. Those who have the bravery to stare are met with an icy glare and hurriedly shift their gaze in response. 

 

“Mind if I sit here?” 

 

Maggie’s voice comes from the opening in Alex’s compartment, the Hufflepuff’s head poking through the slightly opened door. Her voice is light and her eyes are warm, but her expression is anything but. 

 

Alex gestures sarcastically to the empty seats across from her in response. 

 

“Well if you can somehow find a place to sit,” she replies dryly, pivoting to swing her outstretched legs off the cushions and standing to help Maggie with her luggage. 

 

Once the other girl is settled in, a moment of uncomfortable silence settles upon them. 

 

Maggie shifts in her seat. Alex moves to stare out the window.

 

“Do you, um… You wanna talk about it?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Another pause. Maggie searches the other girl for something, eyes skating over Alex’s tense shoulders and set frown. The Hufflepuff stretches out on the cushions, tucking her feet under her and leaning against the wall of the compartment before fiddling with the ends of her sleeves. 

 

“Did you catch the Quidditch World Cup over break?”

 

Alex is grateful for the switch in topic. 

 

/ /  

 

It’s Lena that finally gets through to her about Jeremiah. Lena’s timid voice comes from the slightly open door of Alex’s dorm, causing Alex to look up from the pile of study material littering her bed. 

 

“Alex, can I talk to you?”

 

The older Slytherin frowns, pushing her glasses up and looks over to her roommates, who’ve also turned towards the intrusion. 

 

Leslie rolls her eyes and Siobhan follows suit. 

 

“You’re the one leaving the dorm this time, Danvers,” Leslie burrows further into her pillows as if solidifying her point. 

 

Biting back a nasty remark, Alex swings herself off her bed with a grumble, making sure not to disrupt the loose papers from their messy order, and heads out. 

 

Alex stops just as she closes the door behind her and crosses her arms in front of her chest, turning to face the younger girl. 

 

“So is this a we-can-do-this-in-the-hallway-and-it-doesn’t-matter-if-people-overhear kind of talk or a let’s-go-find-a-concealed-broom-closet-and-cast-a-dampening-spell-for-safe-measure talk?” 

 

Instead of answering, Lena takes Alex’s arm, tugs her in the direction of the common room, and out into the hallway. Curfew had just passed a few minutes ago, but Lena strides forward confidently, leading Alex through the changing staircases and onto the seventh floor. She stops them in front of a blank wall and stares at it silently. 

 

Alex would think the action odd, but then again, this is Lena-- spending as much time with her sister as Lena has is cause enough for anyone to go just a slight bit mad. 

 

Alex stands quietly behind her, but she can’t help the gasp that escapes when a door starts materializing in front of the pair-- an intricate wooden door that’s got scratches and knicks surrounding the edges and a small drawing of two little kids (looking like it’s _done_ by little kids) by the base of the frame. 

 

Alex tries to hold in her questions, fighting with her naturally inquisitive nature to not focus on the fact that her little sister’s best friend has found the Room of Requirement and instead, focus on why Lena brought her here in the first place. 

 

Lena’s hand shakes as she extends it to open the door, but whatever’s on the other end must be motive enough to keep her from stopping. The girl pushes the door open and Alex follows her inside. 

 

The space inside is a bedroom, a quite spacious one in fact, but Alex thinks it pales in comparison to what the castle can expand the room to encompass. It’s decorated to fill every inch, the wood paneling on the walls lavished with posters of Quidditch teams that have won the World Cup over the past few years, a Slytherin house pendant, and blueprints and other ramblings Alex can’t make any sense of. Older-looking posters are sticking out from under the newer ones, a lava lamp serves to cast the room in a darker shade of light, and there’s an intricate replica of the Hogwarts Castle built from what looks to be Legos. 

 

Lena moves to sit on the edge of the unmade bed, drawing her feet up and crossing them, looking around the room with an indistinguishable look in her eyes. She picks up a toy car from the floor-- a red model of those cars from the eighties-- and messes with it, flicking at the wheels and causing them to spin. 

 

“This was Lex’s room up ‘til his seventh year. He’d never take down any of his old decorations, just place new ones over it-- he said it was a way of keeping the different versions of himself alive yet still have room for the person he’s growing to be.”

 

Alex stays by the door, sweeping the room once more to look for any red flags that hint of _exactly_ what Lex Luthor came to be. Her search comes up empty. 

 

“This was before he came home from his sixth year with ideas of blood purity and half-breeds and all that. He never used to be that way growing up. He always made sure I never thought that way too, what with how our mother talks.”

 

Lena’s voice cracks at her last sentence.

 

“Alex, I’m so sorry about my brother and your dad.”

 

Lena looks up with red-rimmed eyes, her expression absolutely torn and Alex can’t help but feel the same when she looks at the younger girl. Sighing, Alex shakes her head, moving forward and kneeling in front of Lena. Gently, she takes the model car out of Lena’s hands and places it back down on the ground. 

 

“Kid, you’re not your brother’s actions. You’re not your _family’s_ actions. You don’t have anything to apologize for.” 

 

Alex looks back at herself in the past month-- of dragging her feet through the halls, declining offers of group hangouts, burying herself in loads of work-- and berates her attitude, knowing her distance is linked to the reason Lena _feels_ she has to apologize. 

 

Now Lena’s shaking her head. 

 

“It’s not-- It’s… I _miss_ him. And I know he’s done a lot of horrible things and he’s hurt a lot of people,” She peaks up through the curtain of her hair to look at Alex at this. “but I miss him, Alex. And I really hate that I do.”

 

“It’s okay to miss him, Lena. We’ve all lost somebody already in all this, you most of all.”

 

“It’s not fair for me to, though. It’s not fair that I feel like this when he’s hurt your family so, _so_ much.”

 

Alex tries not to think about the days spent on the beach with her father, how his hair got all wavy from the saltwater and how he’d help her find sand dollars on his days off. Alex tries not to think about it because if she does, she knows she’ll also think of the past summer-- of paddling out past the break on her surfboard day after day, of lying down and letting the tide take her further and further out, of nearly not having the energy to make her way back, of not minding if she ever did. 

 

“I know he’s gone, that he’s not the same person anymore-- but his face is all over the newspapers, and his name is everywhere, and I can _feel_ everything everyone else feels of when they think of him, and sometimes it’s just so hard to distinguish it all.” 

 

Not knowing how to respond, Alex goes to sit next to the girl, offering her support. She’s not all too sure how to help the younger Slytherin, so they sit in silence, each to their own thoughts. 

 

Alex thinks of Kara and her upbringing, of Maggie and her parents, of Lena and her brother, of herself-- she thinks of how they’ve all somehow found each other, this group of such different people, and how they’ve helped each other keep their heads up. She feels something prodding into her mind at the thoughts and Alex knows Lena’s seeing everything she is, and for the first time in months, she laughs out loud. 

 

“We’re an odd bunch, aren’t we, Luthor?” 

 

She’s thinking of much lighter events now-- of Kara’s first time with a popcorn machine, of Maggie’s obsession with chocolate frogs, of Lena’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge-- and she shares them with Lena, letting the Legilimens into her head willingly, finding the form of communication much easier than having to vocalize her disorganized thoughts. 

 

“The world’s a bit fucked, kid. We’re just lucky we have something to help get us out of bed in the morning.” 

 

Alex nudges Lena’s shoulder and lets her mind wander, her imagination finding its footing through the deepest parts of her unconscious, taking Lena along for a trip through her favorite memories. The younger girl must find something in them because she’s letting out a small laugh next to Alex and looking at the older girl with a knowing look.

 

“Funny how our ‘something’s are both sitting in the Hufflepuff dormitories.” 

 

Alex smiles back, finding comfort in the lighter tone of the conversation. 

 

“Kara usually has that effect.”

 

Lena clicks her tongue teasingly, “Wasn’t really referring to _sisterly_ love.”

 

Alex raises a curious eyebrow in question. Lena shakes her head, smiling a bit knowingly, and Alex can’t help but want in on what she’s thinking. She shrugs the thoughts away as Lena sobers up a bit and looks at her sincerely. 

 

“I’m sorry about your dad.”

 

Alex notices how Lena leaves out the part that puts blame on herself. She inwardly congratulates herself as she smiles warmly at the younger girl. 

 

“I’m sorry about your brother,” Alex says, referring to the girl’s loss of a sibling. 

 

“The world _is_ kinda fucked, isn’t it?” 

 

Alex hums in agreement. 

 

“Let’s make a pact then, Luthor. No matter what happens, no matter how bad things may get, we have to keep the things that make it worth it close to us. No more pushing away feelings o-or just… anything like that. And it’s gonna be hard, for the both of us, but uh, yeah. Deal?”

 

Lena smiles and they shake on it, sealing the pact with a firm handshake. 

 

Alex wonders how many times Lena has had to use a handshake as a defense against those who attend her mother’s infamous soirées. 

 

Alex wonders if the girl will ever be comfortable enough to tell her. 

 

/ / 

 

The next day, Alex walks up to where Kara, Lena and Maggie sit eating lunch in the Quad. 

 

“Hey,” She starts, shooting a small smile at the group.

 

Kara’s eyes brighten at the sight of her sister, Maggie furrows her eyebrows, and Lena gives her a knowing smile. 

 

“Mind if I sit here?” She directs the question at Maggie, the apology dripping from her tone-- hopefully enough to make up for the distance she’s placed between herself and her friend for the past few months since summer. 

 

Maggie tilts her head, her eyes warming as her lips twitch into a small smile.

 

“Well if you can somehow find a place to sit,” Maggie echoes. 

 

The older Hufflepuff moves over, opening up the circle for a space for Alex. As she settles herself down on the ground, Maggie moves to nudge her shoulder, tossing an unopened chocolate frog into the Slytherin’s lap. 

 

“Glad to see you again, Danvers,” she says quietly. 

 

Alex scoots over to her space and leans her head on her friend’s shoulder. 

 

“You too, Sawyer.”

 

/ / 

 

“You can’t honestly be telling me you don’t know what a movie is.”

 

Alex rolls her eyes, “I didn’t say I don’t know what a movie is, I said I’ve never seen one before.”

 

“This is unacceptable. You live in a Muggle community for Merlin’s sake! Shit, Danvers, your mother works as a scientist, your family’s all for the integration of Muggle tech, and you’re telling me you don’t have a television?”

 

“You’ve seen our house before, how could you not know this?”

 

“I just thought you were one of those families who like… had an entire separate room for a t.v., not that you didn’t have one in the first place.”

 

“I don’t even get why it’s that big a deal. So I’ve never seen a movie, so what?”

 

Maggie laughs joyously, “Oh you’ve no idea what you’re missing. I’ll show you a whole new world, Danvers. A dazzling place you never knew.”

 

Maggie winks at the end of her statement and Alex looks at her incredulously. 

 

“Really? Not even Disney? For fuck’s sake, you live in California, Disneyland is _in_ \-- forget it.” Maggie’s grin warns of mischief. “You’re in for a hell of a ride.”

 

True to her word, Maggie’s dragging Alex into the Hufflepuff dorms on Halloween night to watch a movie. Students were barred from going to Hogsmeade that year and no one pretends it’s actually because of weather restrictions. Lex Luthor has once again taken the Prophet’s headlines, the most recent detailing a raid on a wizarding community not too far from Hogsmeade Village. 

 

Having gone to the Halloween celebration in the Great Hall, the two are left alone in the decked-out dorm, the enchanted jack o’lanterns providing an ominous lighting. 

 

“I can’t believe you found a way to bypass the restriction on Muggle tech.”

 

“Can’t take all the credit for that one. There’s this Ravenclaw kid, Winn Schott, he’s in Kara’s year, who wanted to pay me back for something last year. I told him not to worry about it but he’s actually pretty handy with this stuff.”

 

Alex makes a small noise of admiration in response. 

 

Maggie moves to set up a portable DVD player, a device that reads those little reflective, circular discs and plays a movie. Despite her nonchalance on the topic earlier, Alex can’t help but be excited. 

 

Halfway through Alfred Hitchcock’s _Psycho_ (because Maggie insisted on taking Alex through the many different eras of film, and, _hey, it’s in the spirit of Halloween anyway_ ), and Alex isn’t all that excited anymore. Having grown up around magical moving pictures that talk back, Alex is frustrated at how the characters in the film can’t even hear her suggestions-- going into murder houses and getting themselves into situations that could have definitely be avoided. 

 

By the time Lila’s found her way into Norman Bates’ house, Alex is _not_ excited for a different reason. More so, she doesn’t understand how people like watching this whole _horror_ genre, what with how she can count how many times her heart stopped in the past hour. 

 

“Bit too intense, Danvers?” Maggie flinches as Alex’s grip on her upper arm tightens, the younger girl burrowing her head in the bulk of Maggie’s sweater. Pausing the movie just when Norman, dressed as Mrs. Bates, sneaks up on Lila, the Hufflepuff shuts the screen of the portable DVD player, only slightly laughing at Alex’s reaction to the movie. 

 

“In the defense of all cinema everywhere, I probably shouldn’t have started you off with horror.” Maggie pats Alex on the back reassuringly and in response, the Slytherin emerges from her place in the crook of Maggie’s arm lifting her head, glad to see the black movie screen. 

 

“Good to know all that ‘Slytherin bravado’ is actual bullshit though,” Maggie gives the girl a smug grin, raising a teasing eyebrow. 

 

Alex shoves her and the Hufflepuff laughs as she rolls onto the other side of the bed. 

 

“Okay, but here,” Maggie starts, leaning over to pull up another movie from her stack of DVDs. “The best Disney movie to be made yet-- an epic about an unexpected friendship with murder and kidnap and everything in between, all told through groundbreaking animation-- _Monsters, Inc._ ” 

 

Maggie finishes the excited sentence with a dramatic reveal of the DVD case, lifting it over her head and humming a little beat-filled theme. 

 

“And then after, I’m introducing you to the world of _Lion King_.”

 

“If this is more of that horror stuff…” Alex winces, there’s a reason why she never touched her father’s Stephen King novels. 

 

“Don’t worry, Danvers. These movies will have you crying for a whole different reason.”

 

/ /  

 

Alex is back home for the holidays, enjoying the heat of California compared to the near-polar weather of Scotland. The tension with her mother has reached an all-time high with the two barely able to be left alone in a room together, still, Alex enjoys the time back-- spending the days her mother is off-duty on the beach, and excusing herself early from dinner to practice her flying. 

 

It’s the second day of Chanukah that a barn owl screeches its arrival midday. Alex greets the bird with a tentative smile and takes the package from its talons, petting it gently as she opens the attached card.  

 

_Danvers,_

 

_Merry Chrismukkah!_

_The present isn’t all too much, but I made it with my own bare hands (amazing, I know) and got a splinter while making it-- so there’s two things in one, the board and maybe a week or two of my pain. You’re welcome._

 

_-Maggie Sawyer_

 

_p.s. Love the Disneyland merch. Hope you know I’m making you watch all the Pixar movies now._

 

Alex props the gift on her desk with a giddy grin, displaying the card behind it as she sits down to write a response. 

 

The owl perches patiently in the open window. 

 

/ / 

 

Back in school, around the time for New Years, Alex is glad to notice that Kara’s previous bullying problems have all but dwindled out. 

 

Unfortunately, the change in attitude from the other kids stems from their fear in Lena’s last name and how often they see the two witches together. 

 

Still, Alex keeps herself wound tight, ready to defend her sister and Lena if need be. Though she had made Maggie promise to keep away from physical confrontations, she always knew she had trouble taking her own advice, and she figures Kara and Lena are worth the exception of her own health. 

 

Despite the fact, Alex has grown to like the near peaceful stagnation of castle drama and she finds herself hoping nothing disrupts it for a long time.

 

But of course, as all her wishes for a calm year goes, it paints itself as only a pipe dream. 

 

On one particular night, after Lena had decided to stay over in Alex’s dorm, Alex wakes up to find the younger girl writhing in the sheets, eyes wide open, a look akin to pure terror on her face. 

 

Immediately, Alex is up and alert, rushing over to the girl’s side, gently taking her arms to try to steady her thrashing. 

 

“Lena, Lena!” Alex shakes the girl awake. It’s this that catches her attention. 

 

Clarity rushes back into her eyes, though the fear is still as prominent. Her hands have taken on a violent shake and her breath is raggedy at best. 

 

“I’ll be back,” she promises, squeezing the girl’s hand before she’s off to the Hufflepuff dormitories. 

 

Kara sobers up at the sight of her friend, immediately going forward and encasing the Slytherin third-year in a hug, whispering soft words into the girl’s ear as she rocks them back and forth. Alex casts a dampening spell around the two and watches to make sure Leslie and Siobhan haven’t woken up. 

 

“We have to take her to Professor Grant.” 

 

Alex nods at her sister’s words. 

 

The professor is visibly annoyed at the disturbance, but her face reads more inquisitive when Lena explains the events of her nightmare. 

 

“I was in a clearing and Lex was there with me and so was Kara, Alex, and Maggie. There was another figure and someone was throwing a curse, and Lex was laughing and just… It was so, so dark, and hazy, but it also just felt… _real_.” The girl gets her sentences out clear for how shaken she seems to be. Alex notes the thin layer of sweat that covers her forehead and her tight grip on Kara’s hand. 

 

Professor Grant taps her nails lightly against the grain of her desk, pushing herself off and moving to cross her arms over her chest. 

 

“Your brother, if I recall, was also gifted with Legilimency.”

 

The direction of her implication is not lost on the three young witches. 

 

“In the past years, mind tricks have been put into play with the work of dark wizards-- as I’m sure you’re all aware of how Voldemort was able to seduce a wizard into joining his cause and Harry Potter’s own case.” 

 

The professor takes an almost analytical approach to Lena’s problem, and though Alex prefers it, she’s all too sure that it isn’t what Lena needs at the moment. 

 

“It might be imperative that you learn to defend yourself against it, along with learning defense against the much harsher side of dark wizardry. Your normal Defense classes may not be enough in your case, Ms. Luthor. With the go-ahead from yourself, I’d like to present your experience to Headmaster J’onzz. He would be much more equipped in ensuring your safety here at Hogwarts.”

 

/ / 

 

Around the end of the month, the DAET is formed-- the name coined by Kara, who had dubbed their little class the Defence Against Extranormal Threats. 

 

Headmaster J’onzz was on board with teaching the students counter-curses and extra defense mechanisms that he had picked up from his service as an Auror. With his approval, Hogwarts opened a new defense class for those third year and higher, available to be taken as an extra elective, or as one needed for credit. 

 

All too eager to learn to defend themselves and their friend, Alex, Kara, and Maggie all switch their schedules around to be able to take the class. 

 

The size of the class starts off small, with word of it spreading like fire but never sticking in the minds of other students-- as they believe the biggest threat they would need to face is the very person the class was made for. With this, the girls have taken it upon themselves to ‘recruit’ members. 

 

Kara persuades the Ravenclaw boy that helped Maggie with her Muggle technology to join and to Alex’s surprise, he’s a bit braver than he gives himself credit for. Alex strings along James Olsen, a muscle-clad Gryffindor fifth-year who had saved her from a rogue bludger their last Quidditch match though it wasn’t his job to. From there, Lucy Lane tags along and Alex is all too sure the reason is directly linked to the rumor that the two are together. Maggie brings along a friend from her History of Magic study group, a fiesty Gryffindor fourth-year named Kate Kane. 

 

Not before long, the class grows in size, and though their total tally comes up just at fifteen, Alex is grateful to see that others have taken interest in the important class. 

 

Their first lesson is given just at the start of December, revolving around defenses against mind intrusion. The professor splits the class into groups of two, one partner in charge of casting a Legilimency Spell as the other learns to build a defense against it. 

 

For the entirety of the lesson, Alex notes Maggie’s absence and instead, partners up with Lucy for the duration of the week. 

 

/ / 

 

“Hey, you know how people say that one phrase about ‘giving their two cents’? You ever wonder why it’s two cents and yet the reciprocating phrase only asks a penny for someone’s thoughts? Like, think about it. Someone giving their thoughts on something is worth two cents and yet technically, their buying value is only one.” Maggie sighs dramatically, flopping down on Alex’s bed, causing a flurry of papers to fly up. “Must be capitalism-- you know, private industries selling their product for higher than the free market is used to, inflating prices and such. And by product, I mean thoughts.”

 

Alex looks up from her stack of flashcards, utterly confused and just a hint amused. 

 

“How is it you can think of all these random things and remember so many odd facts and yet you refuse to study for the OWLs?”

 

Maggie groans dramatically, rolling over onto her stomach to look up at Alex. 

 

“That’s a whole _year_ away, Danvers. Why stress about it now when it’s totally a Future Maggie problem?”

 

Alex chuckles and throws a stack of rubber-banded flashcards at the Hufflepuff, “You’re going to be screwed for these exams if you don’t study, Sawyer.”

 

Maggie ducks under the thrown projectile and pops up to give Alex a grin. 

 

“That’s impossible, not when I’ve got you to help me study,” She moves forward to lay her head down on Alex’s lap, looking up at the Slytherin with a bright smile, dimples framing her cheeks adorably. 

 

With that smile, Alex thinks she would just about agree to anything. 

 

/ / 

 

It’s a few months before the end of the school year, during a lesson on Patronuses, that the DAET changes its whole institution. 

 

Producing a Patronus is hard, one of the harder things Alex has ever done-- an hour into the lesson and she’s only able to produce the start of a non-corporeal Patronus. 

 

Kara’s got a full-fledged patronus running around the room, the blue, almost ghostly, body of a large wolf bounding around, happily barking and howling at the others.

 

She seems to be the only one who’s got any luck so far. 

 

“I’m naming them Krypto,” Kara declares with a distinct nod. 

 

“You don’t usually… _name_ your Patronus, Kar,” Alex says, though a smile adorns her features. 

 

Alex can’t help but feel just really fucking proud of her sister. 

 

Across the room, it looks like Lena’s just about given up before Kara bounds up to her and pulls her to her feet. The two are having a teasing back and forth, one that almost feels intrusive to keep watching, but just as Alex turns to look away, it happens. 

 

Lena’s body freezes out of the blue-- stops moving, stops breathing, stops blinking-- and in turn, Kara stops moving, stops breathing, stops blinking. 

 

The body of the younger Slytherin collapses on the ground, unconscious and tossing, and in turn, Kara collapses right next to her, alert and worried, hands hovering over her friend, unsure how to help. 

 

The rest of the small class has rushed their way into surrounding the two and Alex pushes past the bulk of them to reach her sister. 

 

Professor J’onzz kneels next to Lena’s body, and as if the movement is automatic, reaches out to touch her forehead. His eyes cloud over and at that moment, Alex knows all their work learning defenses amounts to nothing. 

 

J’onn takes Lena and moves to carry her to the hospital ward, barking a command as students rush out of his way. Kara looks over at Alex, helplessness evident in her eyes, and with a small push and urgency in her tone, Alex implores the girl with a simple, _Go._

 

/ / 

 

It’s that moment that serves as a wake-up call to Headmaster J’onzz. With his contacts with the Ministry’s Auror Department and relation with Minister Kingsley, J’onn is able to convince the Ministry of the student’s capability of offensive attacks. 

 

Not only were they to learn how to defend themselves, but they were to learn how to keep others from hurting their friends. 

 

Already too aware of the power of young witches and wizards with his work in the Order of the Phoenix, Minister Kingsley issues an act to integrate a department of Magical Law Enforcement in Hogwarts’ very grounds-- a group of students working with professors willing to protect the castle if need be. With the rising threat level of the new Dark Lord and his obvious strength over the already renewed Hogwarts defense systems, as seen in the easy accessibility Lex Luthor had to Lena’s mind, the Minister and the Headmaster saw it better that the students are able to take active action in defending their school. 

 

Their small Defence Against Extranormal Threats class becomes an official subsidiary to the Ministry under its new name-- the Department of Extranormal Operations. 

 

The ratification of the new department under the Minister’s word brought on a lot of controversy as parents didn’t want their kids to be exposed to that level of danger in their own school, but the Minister assured the public that the new department’s ‘operations’ would only go as far as reconnaissance and licensed Aurors would be accompanying them throughout it all. 

 

He states that the Department is there to prepare only students who wish to go into an Auror profession, almost like shadowing the profession through an active class-- an addition to the NEWT classes needed for qualification that’ll give students an edge in competition when going through Auror training. 

 

Once again, Alex changes her schedule to be able to take the class. This time around brings even less participants-- those witnessing Lena’s collapse knowing exactly what the DEO stood for, offense against Lex Luthor himself. 

 

The class of fifteen quickly dwindles to nine, the entire organization is plunged into a system of secrecy concerning the school system, yet Alex can’t help but feel prideful in finally being able to enact action in justice against Lex Luthor. 

 

/ / 

 

Alex is leisurely walking towards the Hufflepuff dorms to meet up with Maggie when she stumbles across her instead. 

 

Her pace quickens when she sees that Gryffindor girl, Kate Kane, push Maggie into a corner of the long hallway. She knows Maggie has trouble breathing in corners, when _being_ cornered, when being forced to be smaller than she is. 

 

Alex knows all too much of Maggie’s fighting streak, knows her best friend is more than capable of taking care of herself, but she also knows that Maggie doesn’t fight to save her own skin— that when Maggie fights, she has to have a greater cause, that she only fights when someone can't do it themselves because, _No one would mind if_ I _disappeared, Danvers. It’s not worth it_.

 

(And Alex has tried to point to herself, has tried to speak up and say, _Me. I do. I would care. You are worth everything_. But she falls short whenever she tries to get these words out, and instead, she scoffs and rolls her eyes playfully with a, _Oh hush_ ).    

 

She’s about to call out to Kate, about to step in and step _up_ for her friend like that day all those years back, but her voice is caught in her throat when she sees that Maggie is _smiling_. 

 

Alex freezes mid-step and on the opposite side of the hall, she watches as Kate takes a step forward. She's saying something and Maggie is still giving her _that_ smile and Alex can't move no matter how much she does not want to see where this leads. 

 

Then Maggie is pulling Kate in by her tie and suddenly they’re kissing, and Kate has one hand around Maggie’s waist and another bracing herself on the castle walls. Maggie’s hand has a fistful of the taller girl’s robe and another is looped around the girl’s neck and suddenly Alex is the one who’s having trouble breathing, suddenly Alex is the one backed up into a corner, feeling smaller than she is. 

 

Her balance falters and she doesn’t know why it does, but she doesn’t think she wants to find out, so she turns back the way she came— focussing on her steps and her breathing and it’s harder when all she can think about is how Maggie’s breathless moan echoed in the empty hall. 

 

Later that week, she wakes up sweating to find Lena hovering over her, an indecipherable look on the girl’s face. She jolts in surprise, nearly slamming their heads together when Lena has the right mind to ease up. Alex lightly shoves her away from her bed with a groan. 

 

“What the hell, Luthor?” She rolls away, burying her head in her covers. She doesn’t want to put any thought into why it bothers her so much that Lena woke her up. 

 

The Legilimens leans against Alex’s bedpost, her eyebrow quirked inquisitively. Alex notices her gaze, poking her head out to glare playfully at the younger girl.

 

“What?” 

 

Lena sighs as if defeated, and taps the side of her temple twice. “I didn’t mean to, with the Legilimency. You were thrashing around and your thoughts were just… loud. I can’t really control it when it all gets to be too much. I’m sorry.”

 

Alex pales at the words. 

 

Lena blinks at her silently.

 

“Finally figured it out, did you?” Lena says softly, pushing herself off the post and heading back towards her bed a few feet away. 

 

Alex lays quiet, staring up at nothing, her heart racing as her mind found itself replaying the events of her dream.

 

Maggie’s back is to a wall, and she’s looking up at Alex with that grin on her face, that grin Alex loves, and Maggie is pulling her in by her tie and suddenly they’re kissing, and she has one hand around Maggie’s waist and another bracing herself on the castle walls. Maggie’s hand has a fistful of the taller girl’s robe and another is looped around her neck and Alex doesn’t remember ever feeling so exhilarated for anything that’s ever happened to her when she’s awake. 

 

There’s a rustling of covers across the dorm that snaps her back. Alex’s hand goes to her own covers, fingering the familiar threading of the quilt, picking at it slightly to ground herself. 

 

With a small, shuddering breath, she calls out softly into the dark, “Lena?”

 

There’s movement from the younger girl’s bed and Alex has to strain herself to hear her response, “Yeah?”

 

Alex takes another moment to mess with her sheets. Her throat feels like she’s just stuffed sand into her mouth and attempted to swallow it down with gravel. 

 

“Are you going to tell Kara?” She keeps her voice a whisper and hopes that Lena hears it anyway. 

 

“There’s nothing of mine to tell her, Alex.” A pause. “I’m here for you. I’m here to talk if you want to. If you’re ready.” 

 

Alex balls her hands into a fist, and she manages to croak out, “And if I’m not?”

 

“I’m here for that too. I’ll be here until you are.” 

 

Alex turns in her bed, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes hard enough that she can see stars. 

 

She starts internally combusting as the stars she sees disappear. 

 

/ / 

 

Alex doesn’t have time to think about that night, not really anyway. Not that she’d want to. Maggie’s her friend, her _best_ friend, and they’re going to live together in a Muggle apartment one day and Maggie’s going to be a cop and Alex is going to be a scientist, and they’re going to save the world and come right back and eat ice cream-- but none of that can happen if Alex feels… (If Alex _feels_ ). 

 

 

Even more so, it seems to be that Maggie’s with someone. (Alex has never felt jealousy of Gryffindor more.)

 

So she pushes herself harder in studies, working more and more-- her go-to strategy for distraction. She excels in her Quidditch matches, each game ending with a significant lead in Slytherin’s favor and the prospect of the House Cup seems to be tipped towards her house for the first time in a few years. 

 

And she does all that and manages to avoid any alone time with Maggie. 

 

She just doesn’t know how to feel proud when every second away from the Hufflepuff only serves to leave this… _stinging_ in her chest. And it’s not like it hasn’t always been there but now that she’s placed with her being… 

 

Alex is just about ready to combust by the end of the year.  

 

/ / 

 

**_Evidence For Case of Missing Auror, Jeremiah Danvers, Uncovered In Recent Investigation_ **

 

_In recent operations done by the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement concerning the case of missing Auror, Jeremiah Danvers, new evidence has been uncovered about the Auror’s disappearance. Having surveilled the scene of Lex Luthor’s latest raid in Dufftown, the Department has found evidence of Danvers’ work-- a residue of a substance the Auror was working on concerning the integration of Muggle tech with magic. It is unknown whether or not Danvers recreated this mysterious substance against his own will and the question of loyalty is posed. Was Danvers truly abducted, or did he willingly join the dark forces of Lex Luthor? cont. pg. 3_

 

Alex doesn’t know what to do-- no. She knows she wants to punch something, wants to scream, wants to swim out as far as she can into the Great Lake and float and float and float, wants to escape, always wants to escape. What she’s having trouble with, is what she wants to do _first_. 

 

Alex seethes on her bed, wand in hand, the article levitating in front of her as it burns in violent green flames, angry at the Prophet, angry at herself-- angry. And despite what she had promised Lena earlier in the year, she regresses to her downward spiral. 

 

This time, it’s Maggie who gets through to her. 

 

Pulling her away from their Herbology class with promises that she’ll help the girl catch up at a later time, Maggie brings her to the Astronomy Tower and sits them down in front of the large, open window. It’s bright out, a flock of birds flying over the hills in the distance. The sun bounces of Maggie’s hair in a distracting way and Alex almost doesn’t catch what the other girl says.

 

“We need to talk about your dad.”

 

Alex hardens at the words, “Or we can go back to class and actually do something productive with our time.”

 

She moves to stand back up but her actions are halted when Maggie gently holds her wrist. Releasing her with a small squeeze, Maggie pats the space beside her. 

 

“Alex, please.” There’s a hint of exhaustion in her voice. Alex braces herself as she sits back down. 

 

“There’s- there’s nothing to talk about, Maggie,” She mumbles, drawing her robes tighter around her. 

 

“You remember last year? When I was doing the same exact thing for different reasons and you wouldn’t let me alone with it all? How you felt back then? Alex, that’s how it feels right now. This healing thing doesn’t go strictly one way.” Maggie laces her fingers through Alex’s and gives her hand a squeeze. Maggie’s palms are soft against her own and Alex wants to push up against her to…  keep warm. “I’m here for you, Danvers, through assholes of classmates to murderous dark wizards. We help each other heal, yeah?”

 

Alex takes a deep breath at the words, feels the tension in her give just slightly. 

 

“I don’t know what to do, Mags. I can’t keep Kara safe against Lex, I can’t keep my mom satisfied with anything I do, I can’t clear my dad’s name-- I can’t even _find_ him.” 

 

Maggie moves to lean her head against the taller girl’s shoulder. Alex is all too aware of how it makes her heart beat a tinge faster. 

 

“Alex, you don’t have to do any of that, not if you don’t want to. It is not your job to take on this much. You’re doing more than enough, you _are_ more than enough, just by existing.” Her voice is soft and just a tad bit desperate, as if urgent in trying to make Alex believe in them. “Do you understand, Al?”

 

Alex chokes on the sincerity of Maggie’s words, of how melodious her voice is at the sentence. 

 

“I don’t know what to do,” she repeats in a whisper. “And I’m scared there’s nothing I _can_ do.”

 

“What do you _want_ to do? Not like, with everything. Just…” Maggie pauses, fights with her wording. “right now. What do you want to do, right now?”

 

It’s a harder question to answer than Alex thinks it should be. But this-- sitting with Maggie, warm against the cool wind of mid-winter, holding her hand and listening to the occasional songs of birds flying by-- this is good, this is safe, _she_ is safe. 

 

“Can we just… just stay here a while?” 

 

“Of course.”

 

/ / 

 

“You good, Alex?”

 

Lena eyes her carefully from the bed next to her, having just witnessed Alex smack her head down on the textbook in her lap. 

 

Alex mumbles something into the pages of _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi._

 

“Isn’t Maggie usually here to help you with Herbology?”

 

“Usually,” Alex grumbles. 

 

Lena clears her throat awkwardly and clicks the end of her pen. In front of her lies her own study material for the upcoming final exams.  

 

“Have you… Have you spoken to her about it?”

 

This is what causes Alex to lift her head and it’s only to send a glare in the younger girls direction. She wants to comment about Lena and her sister, wants to dig back with something similar to what the girl is insinuating, but she keeps it to herself, can’t help but realizing Lena feels exactly the way she does. 

 

At her glare, the younger Slytherin grins sheepishly, “Sorry, stupid question.”

 

“I just… It feels so trivial to be hung up on something like… like _this_. When everything’s happening with the Ministry and the Prophet, and yet… You know?” 

 

It’s badly articulated, but she thinks Lena understands. 

 

“It’s okay to need time to think about something like this. To process it,” She’s actively avoiding _the_ word and Alex doesn’t know if she’s grateful or disappointed. 

 

Alex shrugs in response. 

 

“I know you might not be ready for it yet and you might not like this suggestion, but… have you thought of talking to Kara?” Lena gives her a look when she opens her mouth to interrupt. “She’s your sister, Alex, and even more so, she’s _Kara_. She’ll love you no matter what.”

 

Alex looks down at the text in front of her, tracing the drawing of the hydrangea printed on the page. 

 

“Third year has made thee wise, Luthor.” 

 

At her lighter tone, Lena grins. 

 

“I read Shakespeare.”

 

Alex rolls her eyes fondly. 

 

“Dork.”

 

At that moment, Maggie pokes her head in, not bothering with a knock, grin on her face, carrying her portable DVD player. 

 

“Danvers, Luthor, you up for a movie night? I brought _Little Shop of Horrors_.”

 

“The Herbology finals are _tomorrow,_ Sawyer.”

 

Maggie looks down at DVD with a small frown. 

 

“This has a magical plant in it… Sort of.”

 

Lena tries to hide her smile behind a stack of flashcards. 

 

“It’s got _horror_ in the _name_. I thought we talked about this,” Alex playfully glares at her. 

 

Maggie pouts. It's good enough to rival that of Kara’s. 

 

“But… magical, murderous plant.” 

 

/ /

 

The year comes and goes and before she realizes it, Alex is hugging Maggie goodbye, ruffling Lena’s hair, and she and Kara are Apparating back to Midvale with her mom. 

 

She knows what’s coming, she could see it from the train platform-- her mom’s thinly set expression, the hard look in Eliza’s eyes, the furrowed eyebrows completing the look. 

 

Her mother had heard of Alex’s participation in the DEO and more importantly, her mother had heard of _Kara’s_ involvement in the DEO. 

 

Alex is on edge, tense as she waits for and braces herself for the undoubtedly incoming lecture. Her mother has been making comments all summer-- on her grades, _Kara’s_ grades, her Quidditch performance, _Kara’s_ lack of being on a Quidditch team, her spending too much time on the beach, _Kara_ not spending enough time outside. 

 

Alex waits for the undoubtedly incoming lecture, but she surprises herself when she’s the one who inadvertently starts the fight. 

 

They’re eating dinner sometime about halfway in the summer, and Eliza makes an offhand comment about Kara’s health and Alex, tense, coiled, waiting, can’t help but explode. 

 

There’s a heat in her chest, not like the good kind of warmth she gets around Maggie, or the soft kind of feeling she gets around Kara, but a hot, growing strain that presses against her ribs, spreading throughout her veins, pumping throughout her body. 

 

“Why don’t you care about _me_ anymore?!” 

 

Eliza visibly recoils, surprise taking over her features-- widening her eyes and dropping her jaw. She looks as if the words physically stung her, and Alex doesn’t have a good relationship with her mom, but she’s never basked in causing the other woman to start. 

 

Kara shrinks back into her seat and with a look from Alex, scurries off to their bedroom. 

 

Eliza opens her mouth to say something, but Alex stops her with a shake of her head and a hard set look. 

 

“No, don’t. You’ve been different ever since Kara’s come along, and I get that she is a kid who’s just coming to terms with everything new around her and who she is, but you have to accept that she’s going to do things you’re not going to like, and that’s not my fault. I get it, okay? I get that it’s my job to protect her, but goddamnit, I-”

 

Alex takes a harsh breath in and clenches her fist by her sides with a set of her jaw. 

 

“I _miss_ you. I miss you, Mom. I just hadn’t come to realize you’re just as gone as Dad is.”

 

Alex leaves Eliza standing in the middle of the dining room, running out with the slam of a door and her thoughts clouded. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tada! Now, a few notes concerning updating and such-- I recently redid the latter half of my outline for this story and the way it was panning out didn't really match where I was heading when I started this fic. That said, this chapter was a bit choppy (and really late) because I was trying to string together two sort-of-different plot lines-- I didn't want to take down what I already had up but the new outline was working so much better than I needed a pivot-point. This outline is a bit more free-flowing so I can incorporate things from the new season. 
> 
> I really hoped you all liked the chapter! Thanks for reading and everything, have a nice night!


	5. Fifth Year / / 2004-2005

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> QUICK NOTE: the boardwalk mentioned multiple times in this chapter is modeled after the Santa Monica Pier. That may be helpful in visualizing it

 

Alex spends the rest of her summer keeping herself busy with color coordinating her individual study materials for her upcoming OWLs, practicing small, unnoticeable spells without her wand, ignoring the copies of _The Daily Prophet_ that Kara’s owl drops at their window day after day, and pretending her mother doesn’t exist. 

 

She applies for a job at a modest little shack on the boardwalk near the beach called _Mavericks_ so she can earn a little Muggle money and destress after a shift with the catch of a wave down at the water. During the summer, the shack booms with business from the many locals and few tourists of Midvale. 

 

Kara flinches at the constant noise whenever she goes to visit Alex at her job, something Alex has been noticing a lot of-- small little changes in Kara’s sensitivity. She slots the findings away in the recesses of her mind, saving them for when Kara feels comfortable enough to talk about it all. 

 

The job isn’t the best in regards to the pay but she can’t help but find the lives of Muggles fascinating. 

 

She meets another girl her age during her first shift, Vicki Donahue, who’s snarky, snide, and sarcastic-- always equipped with her quick wit and sharp comments. 

 

On her first day, a customer had flown off the handle when his eggs weren’t cooked properly, something he chewed Alex out for. Flustered and a tad unsure of what regulation would legally allow her to do, she stood awkwardly next to the screaming man. Vicki, having heard the commotion, had rolled her eyes from behind the bar, told the customer off, and grabbed her mother, who happened to manage the shack. 

 

From that instance, Vicki had taken a liking to Alex, offering to show her the ropes and becoming an unlikely companion for whenever the noise was too much for Kara to visit Alex. On slower days, Vicki drags Alex to the space behind the shack and the two sit with their backs to the door and a drink in hand (Vicki was making her way through trying every possible combination of shakes she could possibly make. Alex stuck to root beer and although nowhere near butterbeer, she worships it). Alex listens to Vicki gossip about the girls who go to her school, their names sliding over her head but their reputations sticking. 

 

She vaguely recalls knowing Vicki Donahue back in her Muggle school days, vaguely recalls knowing of a Sarah Doe and a Sylvia Falls and an Allen Yoon-- recurring characters in Vicki’s stories. However, those thoughts are cloudy with hazed out memories and blurry remembrances. 

 

Alex wonders if some of Vicki’s stories are embellished or if Muggle school really is as wild as she describes. 

 

It’s fascinating. 

 

Alex has the utmost respect for the other girl and she can’t help but notice how the Muggle strolls along with a unique kind of magic she makes her own. 

 

/ / 

 

Every morning, she and Kara make a habit of running down to the beach before her shift; before the beach clogs with residents and those from out of town-- Kara laying a blanket on the sand, observing the way the waves crash against the shore and staring at the sun until it burned as it came up over the horizon, and Alex surfing the early morning sea, the saltwater spraying her skin. 

 

Sometimes, when Alex has to close up the shack, Kara comes to pick her up and the two walk down the boardwalk under the dying neon lights of the pier. When Kara doesn’t come, she spends the little money she makes from working the part-time job to buy snacks on the way home. Kara’s favorite is the funnel cake sold at a restaurant further down the boardwalk than where _Mavericks_ lies. The restaurant closes a half hour before Alex gets off but she knows a Muggle boy who works there late at nights, a boy she was quite close to before she was heading off to Hogwarts every year. 

 

John Plath is something of a stereotypical surfer with his beach-blonde hair, easygoing smile, and brazen overuse of the word _dude_. But he breaks the mold with his undeniably big heart. 

 

Alex remembers how John had sought her out at the start of the summer of 2001, right when she had just gotten back from her first year at Hogwarts, inquiring about her absence during the school year and Alex had brushed him off with an easy lie. They had promised to stay in touch but each had been swept away by their different circumstances; Alex buried deeper into the wizarding world and John, as recent newspaper headlines of surfing competitions would suggest, cast aside with the motion of the tide. 

 

Her first night closing with Vicki, John had run into her strolling the darkened, vacant boardwalk, and the two had a surprisingly refreshing reunion. It became a habit for whenever Alex got assigned the later shift; she’d wave goodnight to Vicki and her manager then head down to where John always stood waiting for her under the awning of the restaurant. The two would spend a few minutes chatting over a can of pop and a shared plate of fries before going their separate ways when they reached the end of the boardwalk. Those nights, Alex would return home with a somewhat soggy funnel cake for Kara. 

 

She’s never had such easygoing friendships as she did with Vicki and John-- friendships that lacked the stress of that unavoidable doom that came with the presence of disheveled warlocks and equanimous threats. 

 

During the summer, Alex finds herself increasingly wondering what her life would be like if she were just human. She finds herself humoring the idea increasingly, finding solace in the peace that comes with the daydream. No longer would she have to worry about Kara or Maggie or Lena in the battlefield of harm, no longer would she have to worry about every single damn thing in her life marked with an asterisk of danger. She could just _be._

 

But magic is laced in her blood, written in the code of her DNA, and she can’t do anything about that even if she tried. So she focuses on the positive; on how she can do things normal teenagers only dreamed of, on Quidditch and ships that sail underwater and carriages that fly through the air; of every good thing there is to magic. 

 

(Still, she wonders what it would be like to go down to the beach every day after school and catch a wave with John, or what it would be like to learn how to drive with Vicki, the top of her car down and the wind playing with her hair. 

 

More often than not, she entertains the idea of having that life. 

 

More often than not, she entertains the idea of having that life and wonders if that would be the factor that gives her father back to her.) 

 

/ / 

 

Vicki and John both ask her where she transferred to and she gives an offhanded response about going to a boarding school overseas. They don’t question any further than that and Alex would feel bad about lying if it weren’t _technically_ true. 

 

/ / 

 

John comes over one Friday, bringing a stack of DVDs and a laptop, and the action reminds her of Maggie, especially when he reveals ten out of eleven of the movies to be horror.

 

Despite her hatred for the genre, she and John camp out in the Danvers’ living room, a laptop and a bowl of popcorn in between, until John has to go home for the night. They part with promises of having another movie night and Alex can’t help but admit how the genre grows on her.

 

She shows Kara _The Shining_ when John lets her borrow his laptop and Alex feels infinitesimally better about herself, despite knowing she probably shouldn’t, when she watches Kara’s reaction. 

 

/ / 

 

On Tuesdays, after finishing the early morning shift at _Mavericks,_ Vicki takes to the habit of following Alex home and spending the greater half of the day there. 

 

She criticizes Alex’s lack of a television, a phone, a computer, but she says it in a way that isn’t really scrutinizing. She takes one look at the CDs in Alex’s half of the bedroom, shakes her head, and the next week, comes equipped with a small rectangle that contains a hell of a lot of data in a relatively small device. She takes it back the following Wednesday only to have new songs loaded up come the next Tuesday. 

 

Alex doesn’t exactly know how to interact with her at first-- Vicki doesn’t like most things Alex spends her time doing and Vicki hates having to spend more time at the boardwalk they work on. So, Alex starts performing small spells around her. It’s nothing overly noticeable or out of the ordinary, Alex is even one hundred percent sure the Trace can’t pick it up. But she and Vicki watched a movie at the latter’s house one day where one character could perform “magic” with sleight of hand and angle placement, and from then, Alex stuck to things like that. She would take a coin and have it appear behind Vicki’s ear, or make cards fly out of the deck whenever the two spent their shifts playing Go Fish and Jin and Crazy Eights, or levitate a straw in midair. Vicki’s reaction would always be one of bemusement before morphing into a playful grin and demanding Alex do it again. She sees no harm in the small spells, if anything, they’re only helping her get better at performing wandless magic.

 

She does the same to John during the rare moments there’s a lull in conversation, to which he would respond with a wonderstruck look resembling that of a child’s. 

 

When her birthday rolls around, Vicki hands her a small present wrapped in newspapers and John gifts her a deck of cards and pays for a week’s worth of funnel cakes for Kara. 

 

Alex unwraps Vicki’s gift when she gets home to find one of those small rectangle song devices, though a tad scratched up, a pair of earphones, and a small note reading _Happy Birthday._

 

When she thanks Vicki for the present the next day, the other girl waves a hand away and shrugs and says, “It’s nothing, Alex. It’s the one I had through freshman year but it still works fine and I loaded it with as many songs I could pirate online. Happy birthday.”

 

Still, it’s the best thing she gets that year. 

 

/ / 

 

Before she knows it, the end of summer is rapidly approaching and she finds it difficult to say goodbye to her two new friends-- especially when she can’t tell them exactly where she’s going. 

 

Vicki throws down her apron and walks out with her on their last day of the job and asks Alex if the Scottish boarding school she goes to has any cell service. To Alex’s answer of, _I’ll just write to you,_ Vicki laughs like she’s said something funny and shakes her head. 

 

She leaves Alex standing on the boardwalk with a small smile and a quick wave before she’s turning around with a shout of, “See you next summer, Alex.” 

 

Her farewell with John fares substantially worse. 

 

During the last week she spends in America, the two take a day to spend time together with Kara, who had taken to him in the same way she takes to most things-- diving in headfirst. Under Kara’s insistence, the trio head over to the restaurant, despite it being the last place John had wanted to go, and chat over a table full of food. 

 

John stares wide-eyed at how Kara scarfs down a meal fit for a family of four and Alex has to hold back her amusement at his expression to pretend it surprises her, too. After eating, they head over to the arcade on the boardwalk and both Alex and Kara switch off in messing with him with small spells. While playing a first-person shooter, Kara makes it so only she obtained the power-ups and during a game of Tetris, Alex bewitches the machine to only give out the z-tetromino. They finally let up their hijinks when John loses a dollar at a crane machine all because of their doing. (They bewitch his next dollar to end with the drop of three different stuffed animals to make up for it.)

 

They end the day by walking John back to his house, where he nearly cries when Alex and Kara give him a final hug goodbye. They all manage to keep a dry eye and before Alex knows it, she’s giving him a final wave and a fist bump before she and Kara head on home. 

 

/ / 

 

“So. Fourth year’s a big one.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“ _A History of Magic_ is a fun class that year. We learned about the Giant Wars.”

 

Kara gives her a deadpan look from where she lays in her bed, “Yeah, nothing more fun than warfare.”

 

Alex cracks a smile and relents, “Definitely, definitely.” 

 

“Fifth year isn’t so hot either. You guys have the OWLs this year.”

 

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

 

“You ready?”

 

“Of course.” Alex turns on her side to face her sister. “You?”

 

“You’ll be there right with me?”

 

“Always.”

 

Kara laughs cheekily, “Cool.”

 

/ / 

 

At the opening feast, Maggie sneaks over from the Hufflepuff table after the first-years had been sorted, ducking her head as she crosses house lines to sit next to Alex. 

 

As her eyes catch the glimmering Prefect badge adorned on Alex’s robes, the Hufflepuff grins and Alex returns it when she sees a similar badge on Maggie herself. 

 

“Risking the badge already, Sawyer?” Alex teases, feigning a hardened edge to her voice and squinting slightly. 

 

“Come on, Danvers, there’s no rule against sitting in another house’s table,” Maggie furrows her eyebrows. “At least, I don’t think there is.”

 

“Well, just in case,” Alex shrugs as she winds her scarf from her neck and wraps it around Maggie, smiling as she admires her work. “There. A foolproof disguise.”

 

Maggie grins, adjusting the scarf to cover the Hufflepuff insignia on her robes, “Not to mention, it _looks_ great, too. Why aren’t there _more_ clothing styles that have black, green, _and_ yellow in one?”

 

Alex laughs at the joking lilt in the Hufflepuff’s voice and shakes her head, “The world of fashion’s just backward.”

 

“Must be,” Maggie shrugs, taking an apple slice off of Alex’s plate. 

 

Alex has missed her, so much so that the realization comes tumbling down to barrel itself through her chest. The sight of her best friend takes the very breath from her lungs and she can’t help but grin in Maggie’s presence. They had missed each other on the Hogwarts Express, each attending to different sections of the Prefect compartment. 

 

She rocks her shoulder into Maggie’s and receives a nudge in return. The action feels almost habitual, even with the summer spent without each other’s company. 

 

(She briefly wonders how Maggie would fit into the little Muggle daydream she’s created-- if she ever would. She wonders if it would be worth sticking it out in the Wizarding World just to ensure Maggie’s presence in her life. She doesn’t want to weigh the options, it would be useless to do so anyway. She shakes any lingering thoughts of the daydream away.) 

 

/ / 

 

For the first week of classes, their Care of Magical Creatures professor brings out a whole branch of Bowtruckles for the students to interact with. 

 

For the whole block, the students gather around different Bowtruckles who poke softly at their eyes and swing freely from the underside of the tables. 

 

One particular Bowtruckle blows raspberry and squeaks profusely when anyone comes near its home tree, and it surprises Alex (though at this point, it really shouldn’t) when the creature chooses to climb up onto Maggie and lets her place him on her shoulder. 

 

“I never realized how great you are with animals.”

 

“I think it comes with the whole I-spent-my-summer-on-a-farm-herding-cows thing.” The Bowtruckle slides down Maggie’s shoulder to burrow into the hood of her robes. “It was actually really cool. There was this one rabbit that would dart out from the wood lining the farmland, I’m not actually sure if it was the same one over and over again, but yeah. I would go chase it around a little, just back to the tree line, so the dogs wouldn’t see it and be tempted to hunt it down.”

 

Alex smiles at the story. 

 

At that point, Lucy stumbles near the Bowtruckles’ home tree, tripping over the strap of a backpack haphazardly placed in the middle of the room and nearly barreling into the tree itself. Noticing the girl, the Bowtruckle snug in Maggie’s hood pops out and proclaims animatedly, squeaking its defiance. 

 

Maggie laughs at its antics and shakes her head but Alex doesn’t miss the quick warning glance the Hufflepuff sends over to Lucy. The girl’s attention is pulled back when the Bowtruckle starts tugging at her hair to climb atop her head, wincing and grimacing at the creature’s movement. 

 

Alex laughs, feeling her features soften as she watches the scene unfold. 

 

/ / 

 

After the first week, the school system plunges straight into the deep end, going right into the new year with much more rigor than the last. 

 

Having only two classes in common, Alex and Maggie set up their patrol shifts as prefects to line up with one another and spend the greater part of each shift racing through the halls and playing games as they watch for underclassmen out after curfew. 

 

They take up a new competition one night as they’re patrolling near the Gryffindor Tower and stop to chat with the Fat Lady. 

 

Strolling along, telling stories of their respective summers, the Fat Lady had woken up to scold the volume of their voices only to be taken back to see they were of different houses. Instead of telling them off, she had struck up a friendly conversation that Alex and Maggie were all too happy to be a part of. 

 

Still, having never seen the inside of the Gryffindor Common Room, Alex’s curiosity got the better of her and every now and then, she’d attempt to coax out the password from the Lady or persuade the painting to let her in. 

 

Catching on quickly, Maggie had smirked at her and actively tried to steer the conversation the opposite direction. 

 

Come the next morning, Maggie had sought Alex out as she was eating breakfast, a small sack of Sickles in hand. 

 

“I bet I could get in Gryffindor Tower before you could,” the girl had said, pushing the sack of coins in Alex’s direction. 

 

“Did you inhibit a gambling addiction over the summer, too, Sawyer?” Alex pushed the money back and shook her head to the bet. “Trust me, I’m doing you a favor.”

 

“To prevent my ‘gambling addiction’?” Maggie quoted, raising an eyebrow. 

 

Alex hummed in response, “That and so you could keep your money. There’s no way I’d lose that bet.”

 

“Well if you’re so confident…” She pocketed the sack, put her elbows on the table, and rested her head on her hands, attention unwavering. “Name your terms.”

 

“Loser has to take the winner’s decorating duty on Halloween.”

 

“Deal,” Maggie stretched her hand out. “And winner gets gloating rights.”

 

Alex took her hand, giving it a firm shake, “I mean, naturally.”

 

/ / 

 

The DEO catches wind of a meeting of Lex’s followers through its contact at the Auror Department and J’onn suggests Winn and James tag along with the Aurors assigned to do recon on the scene. 

 

The Ministry had sent over two Aurors earlier in the year to help the program expand and talk to the students about taking on a job at the Department. James and Winn were to shadow them from a surveillance vantage point as the Aurors infiltrated the meeting. 

 

Lena had protested their participation in the dangerous activity and tried to volunteer herself, but her protests were shut down with a reassuring talk from James and an uplifting smile from Winn. 

 

The class gave the two boys and the two Aurors a loud farewell a week later, come their departure. 

 

/ / 

 

Kara comes over to her dorm room on a Saturday while most people are out at Hogsmeade. At the sight of her sister, Alex yanks out the earphones in her ears-- she was just listening to the flurry of songs Vicki had downloaded after bribing Winn to bypass the restriction on Muggle tech with the music rectangle. 

 

Alex flashes the younger girl a smile but it quickly fades away at the sight of how distraught Kara appears. She briefly wonders if this has anything to do with what she noticed over the summer.

 

“Everything okay?” Alex starts, moving over on her bed and patting the space next to her, signaling Kara over. 

 

The younger toes off her shoes, scoots back on the bed until her back rests against the headboard, and rests a head on Alex’s shoulder. Alex feels her nod. 

 

“I’ve been having these weird dreams.”

 

“The same ones as last time?” 

 

Kara shakes her head in the negative, moving to fiddle with her fingers over her lap. 

 

“They’re not exactly _nightmares_ more than they’re just… disturbing? I don’t know, it’s just freaking me out.”

 

“Want to talk about it?”

 

Kara shrugs against her, “I don’t exactly know where to start. I never remember anything about them, I just wake up and have this feeling all over my body-- like this dull ache _everywhere_.”

 

Alex furrows her eyebrows and frowns at this.

 

“It feels like something’s changing-- like, overall, but also specifically with _me._ ” Kara shrugs again and lets the topic fall away until the two are left in a comfortable silence. Alex offers her the left headphone and plays the rest of the playlist until the students are called for dinner. 

 

/ / 

 

The first Quidditch game of the school year is set to be between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw later in the middle of November and when Maggie offhandedly mentions wanting to try Quidditch one night when patrolling, Alex is dragging the girl onto the pitches before she even finishes her sentence. 

 

Alex lets Maggie use the practice brooms the Flying instructor lends to the first-years and after seeing her friend zoom around the field, scarf flapping behind her, exclaiming her excitement with every sharp turn made, Alex realizes she’d make a pretty good Seeker. 

 

Wanting to test her hypothesis, Alex waits until Maggie is about to fly over her before taking the apple in her hand and launching it straight up-- right into Maggie’s flight path. 

 

The Hufflepuff is going too fast for Alex to see her reaction, but she hears a yelp echo throughout the field and seconds later, the apple is being lobbed back towards her. She lets out an excited huff of air as it falls right in front of her feet. 

 

Maggie mounts off, the broom under her wobbling as she steps away, actions slow and untrained, and walks over to Alex to slap her lightly on the arm. 

 

“I know Quidditch is a dangerous sport but I hadn’t realized I should be looking out for murderous fruit being lobbed at me, too.” Maggie kicks at the apple on the field. She takes in an exaggerated sigh and lets it out in a, “Why the apple, Danvers?”

 

“Did you see how fast you were going? And on a practice broom?” Alex tries to focus on her train of thought, trying not to let it get muddled at the sight of Maggie’s windswept hair and glimmering eyes. “And you still caught a projectile hardly small enough to see at that speed.” 

 

Maggie waves away the compliment and takes on a teasing grin, “Well damn, how small do you think apples are?”

 

“You know what I’m trying to say,” Alex rolls her eyes. “It’s not like your house team is the best right now. Three of your best players graduated last year and I’m not even sure who they appointed as captain for this season.”   

 

“Are you suggesting I try out for the team with no other training other than our first-year Flying lessons?” 

 

“I’m _saying_ you’re unnaturally fast on a broom for someone with no other training other than first-year Flying lessons.”

 

“And?”

 

“And that you should definitely try out for your team because you’re all the better for it.”

 

Maggie shakes her head in the negative, a small, dismissive smile on her features, “I don’t think I could ever get used to it.”

 

“What, flying?”

 

“Yeah. I mean, Danvers, it’s _flying_. Like, movement suspended through air, the stuff of fantasy novels. That’s not exactly a _normal_ thing.”

 

Alex sometimes forgets that her childhood was much different from Maggie’s-- that Maggie’s summer days weren’t filled with rides on the back of her dad’s broomstick, that her nights weren’t accompanied by moving dishware and self-setting tables, that she didn’t spend every morning with her head stuck in spell books and pamphlets. Alex sometimes forgets this and it hits her harder every time she remembers. 

 

Maggie, who still flinches when paintings move in the dead of night, botches the Latin roots of harder spells, and stares after pegusi as they fly overhead, hadn’t grown up with magic-- magic was something introduced to her in a flurry of acceptance letters and owl post and _Ollivander’s Wand Shop_ \-- and Alex thinks she would understand being overwhelmed by the bulk of it all.  

 

She misses experiencing those firsts-- her first time riding a broom, her first time talking to a ghost, her first time at Diagon Alley-- but what she’d forgotten altogether was the feeling of wonder she had experienced at those moments.

 

Alex smiles softly at the shorter girl and jokes, “Says the witch with magical powers going to a wizarding school.” 

 

Maggie responds with a head tilt and a huff of laughter. 

 

“At least try out for the team, it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot. You’re the one who mentioned it in the first place,” Alex provides with a pointed look. “I’ll even lend you my broomstick for tryouts.” 

 

The other girl relents, the tension in her shoulders dropping with a conceding nod and a shrug.

 

/ / 

 

Maggie gets drafted into the Hufflepuff Quidditch team as its reserve Seeker and she’s bouncing as she tells Alex the news.

 

/ / 

 

Alex starts to notice small changes in Kara’s mood-- not so much drastic in personality but rather, small peculiarities. 

 

Her sister starts becoming more irritable around large groups of people, sometimes flinching away and burrowing her head in between her hands at loud noises. It’s a much more drastic response than it was over the summer. 

 

And Kara’s always been a little bit peculiar but never like it _hurts_ to be, which is the distinct impression it’s giving off to Alex. She tries to pry just a tad, wanting to ensure her sister’s wellbeing, but again, they have a conversation that leads nowhere. It seems that whatever’s happening with Kara is a mystery even on to the host. 

 

/ / 

 

James and Winn return from shadowing the two Aurors in their mission and it seemed to be a success, if their stories are anything to go by. Winn takes to exaggerated movements and vocal sound effects as he recalls how the mission ended in a duel in which the Aurors they were with won with a powerful _Bombarda Maxima._

 

To Lena’s horror, the rest of the students enrolled in the class are lining up to go on their own missions. 

 

/ / 

 

“Don’t you already have a costume, Kara?”

 

“That’s the one I wore last year though.”

 

“Why don’t you just go as a witch?”

 

Alex spends the weekend visit to Hogsmeade with Kara and Lena when Kara drags the two of them along to shop for Halloween costumes. 

 

/ / 

 

As Halloween draws closer, Alex seeks out James’ help in getting into Gryffindor Tower. She’s pretty sure this is what Maggie would categorize as “cheating” but she’s not past resorting to it to win the bet. There’s a Halloween Quidditch game she needs to train for and she can’t have her time taken up with levitating plastic pumpkins and deciding if the first years will better enjoy Acid Pops or Cauldron Cakes. 

 

She has James take a photo of her staring mockingly into the camera next to the fireplace in Gryffindor Tower and uses it as proof. 

 

When she shows the photo to Maggie, the Hufflepuff responds just as Alex figured she would and to her protests, Alex bites back with, “The bet was who could get into Gryffindor Tower, Sawyer, not who could get the Fat Lady to spill the password.”

 

“You’re a cheat, Danvers.” 

 

“And you’re taking over both our Halloween decorating duties.” Alex winks, leaving Maggie baffled as she makes her way to the pitches. 

 

/ / 

 

The Halloween season comes and goes, and soon enough, the Holidays roll around. Maggie spends the break over at the Danvers’ once again and her presence in the stress of the season is something of a refreshment. She brings a new kind of energy to the household, one Alex has been hesitant to feel ever since her dad disappeared-- and she finds herself basking in its warmth. 

 

Like the last time she was over, Maggie complains about California’s Holiday season; saying it’s too warm for the time of the year. They spend most of their time on the beach because of this and Kara, Maggie, Alex all fall into the habit of waking to salt in the air, waves crashing against the shore, sand in between toes. Late at night, when Maggie has trouble sleeping and her trouble sleeping causes Alex to be unable to sleep, the two sneak out to take a stroll down the boardwalk. It’s significantly different with the lack of people and the absence of neon flickering lights; different but not bad. It’s soothing in a way, the still silence of the place after hours, and with the ambiance and Maggie’s easy words, Alex is lulled into something of a trance. 

 

She’s giggling ( _giggling)_ on their way back, her lack of sleep making her near-delusional that Maggie has to take her arm to lead home. And with the contact, suddenly, she’s wide awake. 

 

/ / 

 

For the first time in months, Alex is able to contact Vicki and John. 

 

Maggie takes to John as everyone does; unable to resistant his easygoing personality and warm smile. Surprisingly, the two are able to talk for hours on hours about films-- Alex had known they both enjoyed them but she never really got into it all herself to get as far in depth as they go. 

 

She loses track of the conversation when they start picking apart each frame of _The Shining_ to analyze how Stanley Kubrick’s every decision added to the tone of suspense in the film. Maggie would always take the time to explain whatever she and John would talk about to Alex and even though it still made no sense to her, Alex knows she likes the sound of Maggie’s voice and the special kind of smile that stretches across Maggie’s face and the unique spark in the depths of Maggie’s eyes, so she listens and she really does try so, so hard to comprehend. Still, when the conversation becomes impossible to follow, she resorts to nodding along like she gets it to be able to sit and watch how animated Maggie gets. 

 

Maggie takes to Vicki a little (a lot) less than she takes to John. 

 

“I’m sure she’s not a bad person, Danvers, she’s just sort of _much,_ you know?” 

 

In all the words one can use to describe Vicki Donahue, Alex doesn’t think _much_ fits in the category. Because while she understands how _much_ makes a certain type of sense, she knows it’s in a way Maggie doesn’t use the word. Because Vicki is easygoing in her own way-- with her laid-back personality and the ever-present boredom in her eyes and the easy smirk of her lips. It’s her whole _appeal--_ that is what makes it worth being her friend, it’s something of an honor when you get her to laugh with abandon, or get her eyes to dance with humor, or get her lips to stretch into a genuine grin. What’s _much_ is the feeling that blooms in your chest at those responses. Alex is almost certain Maggie isn’t talking about that when she uses the word. 

 

Still, Alex can see how Maggie frowns at some of Vicki’s words and furrows her eyebrows at some of Vicki’s actions, so she takes the subtle hints and keeps the two apart. 

 

/ / 

 

Maggie unwraps her gift from Alex, a bit hesitant when noting how the package comes up above her hips. Alex could have very easily placed a charm to make it smaller but it would’ve only ruined the theatricality. When the shorter girl gets the present unwrapped, she laughs and laughs and laughs. It’s a jumbo set of wizard’s chess that Alex had blown out of proportion with a quick wave of her wand and a muttered _Engorgio._

 

“For your chocolate frog obsession,” she offers as an answer. “There’s no way that frog can hop away from that.”

 

Maggie gets her a chemistry set complete with beakers and graduated cylinders and a few chemicals she’s sure civilians aren’t _legally_ allowed to obtain, and Alex loves it. 

 

“You said you wanted to be a scientist all those years back,” Maggie offers as an answer when Alex looks up at her with shining eyes. “I’m just sorry the gift is so late.”

 

Eliza gifts Alex her father’s old broomstick, the Nimbus 1000, the one Jeremiah had said was unfixable. Her mother hands her the present when the two are alone, later in the night than when the group did presents together. 

 

“He would want you to have it. He’d be proud of you.” was Eliza’s cryptic answer. “As I am.”

 

It’s as much of an apology as she knows she will ever get from her mom and if she cries later that night with her father’s Durmstrang colors wrapped around her, then she can’t be to blame. 

 

/ / 

 

Back at Hogwarts, she meets Maggie in the courtyard near the start of their nightly patrol as Prefects to see her pacing angrily as she cradles her hand. 

 

Approaching her cautiously, Alex scans her up and down to see the extent of her injuries. The girl’s got a bit of a swell on her lips and some major bruising on her knuckles but, not finding much out of place besides that, she nudges her friend and asks, “What happened?” 

 

The Hufflepuff doesn’t stop pacing but angrily mutters what Alex has to assume is explicit in how she kicks at the ground and occasionally laughs sardonically. 

 

“There were these two upperclassmen out after curfew and I tried to give them a warning to just… go back to their dorms, but they started saying all this crap about me-- how I shouldn’t have been chosen as a Prefect because I’m gay and that, in no way, is the example of a model student. And I really did try to just let it slide by and take a few points away from the both of them, but they just got so _angry_ at that and started to advance. I tried to fight back but that bastard ducked and I punched a damn wall. They left when they thought they heard a professor coming down the hall. I reported them to the professor when she came by.”

 

Alex nods as she finishes the story then wordlessly takes her hand, leads her down to the lavatory, and gets her situated against a wall while she runs a stack of paper towels under water. Alex starts to prod at the bruises on Maggie’s knuckles, wiping away the blood pooled from where one of her knuckles split to get a better look at the wound. She shoots the Hufflepuff an apologetic look when she winces. 

 

Studying the wound, nothing looks too out of place. Nothing’s broken-- that’s for sure-- but Alex doubts the other girl can get any activity out of this hand if it’s left all swollen. She looks up from the hand to see Maggie staring intently at her. 

 

She squirms just a tad under the intense gaze, “What?”

 

“Are you mad at me?”

 

Alex rolls her eyes at that one, “Of course not, you idiot. You told those homophobes off, good on you.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Alex nods and takes out her wand, preparing to heal the wound, “What you did isn’t an easy thing to do.”

 

“I don’t know,” Maggie shrugs. “kinda makes me… happy? I don’t know if that’s the right word.”

 

“This may hurt a little,” Alex mutters before letting out a quiet _Episkey._ If it did hurt, Maggie doesn’t give any indication. 

 

The Hufflepuff curls her fist experimentally and laughs when the pain is no longer present. Maggie hadn’t taken to a knack for healing spells herself and Alex imagines the fact is due to her growing up in the Muggle world-- where she relied on modern medicine rather than magic and spells. Each has their benefits-- Alex just likes the instantaneous result of using healing spells.

 

Alex returns to the topic at hand, “Doesn’t it just get tiring after a while though? Not to mention angering. These people should already know what they did isn’t a good thing without having someone berate them for it.” 

 

“It’s not _that_ I look forward to-- some people just can’t get that through their heads. It’s in making them realize that what they did-- what they’re doing-- is something people notice and disagree with; that’s the good thing. This,” she lifts the hand Alex is studying. “this isn’t what’s fun.”

 

“And ‘happy’?”

 

Maggie nods as Alex shakes her head. 

 

“I can’t possibly imagine how that brings you happiness. It just seems so… tiring,” she repeats.  

 

The other girl scoffs.

 

“Happiness is an opinion, Danvers.”

 

“And this is what your definition consists of?” 

 

“Judge all you want, hotshot, but how’s it fair that you poke fun at mine when you haven’t even told me yours?” 

 

The challenge in her tone drips from her wide grin, which spread across her face at Alex’s look of panic. 

 

“Well? Out with it, then. What makes Alex Danvers happy?”

 

This is a dangerous conversation. 

 

Because ‘happiness’ is a nine-lettered word that spelled out more than just that. Because ‘happiness’ spells out ‘love’ and ‘life’ and ‘flourish’ and is interchangeable with all three, and even more that Alex can’t even fathom to think of, much less had experienced. 

 

Because Alex knows happiness is an opinion, but she also knows her views on it are highly unacceptable. Because how could it be? How could she admit to something like that?

 

Even then, she knows what her definition is. 

 

She spells her definition with six letters, repeating two, and borrowing the thirteenth letter of the alphabet-- _Maggie_ \-- and that is something she can no longer deny.

 

/ / 

 

The next morning, she and Kara walk a path down by the Great Lake in the period between the end of daily classes and the start of dinner. 

 

The air is chilly around them and Alex wraps herself in her sweater tighter to combat the cold. Kara ambles along in a pace matching her own. Her sister had been doing homework with Lena before Alex pulled her away, not without a reassuring smile from the other Slytherin. 

 

“So, what’s going on? Is something wrong?”

 

“No, no. I, um… Just, uh…” she stops to clear her throat though it does nothing to help stop the panic from rising up. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

 

At Kara’s, silence she adds, “Something about me.”

 

Her words are slow in coming out, her mind stalling for her in the event she wants to back out-- which, she does; she so, so does, but she sees Kara give her a small smile and reminds herself who she’s talking to. This is her sister, the person who’s always there for her. This is Kara. It’s only Kara. 

 

“Alex, whatever it is, you can tell me.”

 

“It’s about Maggie.”

 

She sees Kara furrow her eyebrows and give a slow nod. She refuses to look directly at her sister. 

 

“Okay…”

 

“Well, you know how it is with her-- she’s my best friend, she always has been. But right, um, so. There’s…” She lets out an angry huff at her own disability to get out the words. Kara leads the two over to a felled tree where they take a seat side-by-side. She clears her throat again. “Lately, you know, I’ve been um… I started--”

 

“Alex.” Kara cuts her off with a pat on her knee and a soft smile. “What is it?”

 

Kara looks at her with the kind expression that makes her want to spill the contents of her mind-- everything-- every thought, word, memory to back up the right she has to her feelings. But this is Kara. She can’t burden Kara with this when Kara’s been acting irritable and angry and tense-- when Kara so very clearly has something else going on inside her. 

 

She wonders where it got to this point; they were supposed to do it all together-- she wonders when they both forgot that. 

 

She starts to shake her head.

 

“I don’t really want to talk about it anymore.”

 

She gets up and doesn’t look back. 

 

/ / 

 

J’onn has the group revisit the Patronus Charm when the Auror Department leaks the involvement of dementors in Lex Luthor’s operation. 

 

This time, Alex is able to produce a corporeal Patronus of a rabbit and the rest of the class celebrates her accomplishment as the Patronus bounds around the room. It hops around and follows her and when she goes to show Maggie, who was situated across the room, the Hufflepuff grins and crushes her in a hug that has Alex losing all her concentration. Her Patronus fizzles out as she reaches to return the embrace.

 

/ / 

 

Later that night, when she and Maggie are together in the Hufflepuff Commons, Maggie is able to produce a corporeal Patronus, also. The Hufflepuff gets less of a fanfare than Alex did earlier that day but Alex cheers loudly enough to disturb the entire room to make up for it. It’s a fox-- Maggie’s Patronus-- and it tiptoes around its wizard, making Maggie laugh delightfully. 

 

/ / 

 

She catches Kara in the Quad on a Wednesday, her bag laying on the ground near where she sits on the ledge of one of the arches, reading a copy of _The Daily Prophet_ , frown growing deeper with each passing second. 

 

It’s a rather quiet afternoon and the sky hangs heavy over them, dark and grey. 

 

Alex walks over to her sister, throwing her knapsack over her shoulder and swinging her feet to sit atop the ledge. She steals a glance at the headlines. 

 

“Anything interesting?”

 

Kara doesn’t need any clarification on what the older girl is asking for.

 

“Nothing new,” Kara shrugs, folding up the paper and leaning back onto the support behind her. The frown on her face doesn’t let up. 

 

“And that’s a bad thing, is it?” Alex jests. 

 

Her sister cracks a smile that holds no humor behind it. Another shrug. 

 

“It doesn’t scare you? It seems like every time _nothing_ happens, it only gets worse when something _does_.” 

 

Alex nods along. 

 

“But at the same time, it’s like… no news is _good_ news.” Kara shakes her head dismissively. “That probably made no sense.”

 

Alex opens her mouth to respond, but she’s startled to silence when Kara jolts upright and stares her straight in the eyes. Her posture is rigid and controlled, trying its hardest to be relaxed to no avail. She drags her eyes down Kara’s figure, quickly looking for any external injuries.

 

“I have something to say,” Kara all but blurts, the words bubbling up from her in a way that made it seems as if she gave a herculean effort to try and keep them down. 

 

Startled, and just a tad confused, Alex nods at her to continue, eyeing her sister suspiciously. However, it seems that Kara’s bravado had all but drained out from the previous outburst and she sits there, twiddling her thumbs and scratching at her wrists nervously. 

 

The Hufflepuff clears her throat and audibly swallows, her gaze fixed on the space between her and Alex. 

 

“I don’t mean to, um… I don’t want to overstep, but…” Kara winces and continues with a soft voice. “I think I have feelings for Lena--”

 

Alex almost doesn’t hear the first part.  

 

“--feelings like you have for Maggie.” 

 

And that’s when Alex promptly chokes on her own breath while fighting to swallow down the panic creeping up her spine. She almost doesn’t hear the first part-- her heart beating too fast for her brain to process anything else except for the effort to try and slow it down. She almost doesn’t hear the first part-- mind going into overdrive, thoughts spiraling and, how does she know, how, how, _how_. She isn’t ready to talk about this. Not when she tried so hard for it to end in nothing last time. 

 

She almost doesn’t hear the first part-- but a few seconds pass and suddenly, it’s all she can manage to focus on. 

 

Alex exercises her innate ability to push down her feelings and instead, hyper-focuses on the fact that her sister needs her-- and that will always come above all else. 

 

“Lena,” Alex manages to choke out. “Okay. Um, how-- wh-- since when?”

 

Kara eyes her sister carefully, though her gaze lacks an analytical edge, instead, it contains a look akin to pity. Alex deems it to be worse. 

 

“Alex, are you sure you’re okay to talk about this? I know I shouldn’t have brought it up without asking you first, or I should’ve waited until you came to me about it, but I just couldn’t help but feel…” A pause, a cautious look towards her sister. “ _alone_ in what I’m feeling, this year has been so _weird,_ with everything feeling like it’s changing but nothing really _moving forward,_ but I see how you are with Maggie and how you tried to say something earlier and that how you are with her was like--”

 

Kara cuts herself off when she sees something on Alex’s face, perhaps keen of the underlying panic Alex so desperately tries to hide. And then, like a switch, Kara puts up her own walls, her face guarded as Alex’s, and she shakes her head and forces on a smile. 

 

“You know what? There’s a paper I have to get in by first block tomorrow and being that I haven’t even thought of the assignment since it was, well, assigned, I should probably head in now.” 

 

Alex knows she should stop her-- knows she should sit her back down to deal with whatever this is _together_ , like they always do-- but the relief floods through her body automatically and she desperately claws at the solace she finds within it. Still, she has to grip at the edge of the ledge and lean all her weight back to prevent from reaching out to Kara. 

 

Her sister in haste in her retreat, only stopping to give Alex a brief hug before scurrying off down the direction of the Hufflepuff Basement. 

 

She turns back only once, giving Alex a soft look, her teeth worrying her bottom lip, and, “She feels the same way about you.”

 

/ / 

 

The upcoming Quidditch match is between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff to decide which team is to go against Ravenclaw for the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup. 

 

Slytherin hadn’t been playing all too well this year with their captain absent for nearly half their matches due to personal health reasons so it isn’t too much a surprise when they lost their last game to Ravenclaw and lost a spot in the finals. 

 

However, this game was especially important for a certain Hufflepuff reserve Seeker. In Hufflepuff’s last match, their Seeker, Evan Ginsberg, had taken a Bludger to the face and is still recovering in the hospital wing of the castle. To add to this, this game would decide if Maggie would take over as Hufflepuff’s main Seeker next year come Ginsberg’s graduation. 

 

Alex is arguably the loudest person cheering during that match and though it ends with Gryffindor’s victory due to a lead in points made by their Chasers, Maggie had caught the Snitch, ending the game in an impressive downwards spiral to reach for the Snitch and earns her place in her house team next year. 

 

/ / 

 

She walks on eggshells around Kara who, she’s assuming, is doing the same with her. Nothing much changes; they still dine together, walk each other to their classes, and say their farewells every night, but there’s a very noticeable damper in their interactions. They no longer talk about anything deeper than what their days were like, they no longer spend time together outside of their small group of friends-- and Alex chalks it up to one thing; they no longer feel safe enough with the other. 

 

It’s when Kara takes a well-placed Stupify that has her flying towards a wall in the DEO that Alex decides to step in. 

 

The thought makes her uncomfortable; she wants anything but to admit to that part of herself, the part of herself that she can’t fit inside her all too well. But before all else, she’s Kara’s older sister. 

 

After Kara’s dismissed from the Hospital Wing, Alex makes her way to the Hufflepuff Commons with Maggie’s help. From there, she lets herself into Kara’s dorm to find her sister eating popcorn while splayed out in bed. 

 

At the sound of the door creaking open, Kara lifts her head to see her sister pacing around the space. By now, it’s dinnertime, and Alex thanks how the timing worked out so she doesn’t have to ask any of her sister’s roommates to scram. 

 

“I said I was fine.” she stretches her lips into an unconvincing smile. “You didn’t need to check on me.” 

 

“I’m not checking on you.” she is. “You’ve been weird ever since I tried to tell you.”

 

She shrugs, “I don’t mean to be.”

 

“Kara, I know when you’re sad. Or when you’re disappointed.” she takes a shaky breath in, as not to let her bravado slip. “I don’t know what I would do if you were disappointed in _me_.” 

 

“I would never be disappointed in you,” she sits up from where she lays and leans her weight forward. “but you said you didn’t want to talk about it anymore.”

 

“Well, I do if it’s making us like _this_.”

 

She stays silent, wraps her sweater around her tighter, refuses to meet her eyes. 

 

“Kara,” she sighs. “I know I haven’t good to you this year, I know I’ve messed up and put you second to everything else and I know how that wasn’t the right thing to do.”

 

“Alex,” she shakes her head and moves over to gesture to the space next to her. “sit down.”

 

She exhales, “Alex, come and talk with me.”

 

She does so hesitantly.

 

“I think I owe you an apology.”

 

“For what?”

 

“For not creating an environment where you felt like you could talk about this with me. All those years since we met, the endless nights talking and sharing-- I realize they were all about me and my secret. There’s never been room for you and that’s my fault. And I’m so sorry.”

 

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

 

“No, but I did. We’re supposed to do this together, all of this. And I’ve been making it all about myself, and I’m sorry for that. You promised me you’d _be right there with me_ and I’ve realized I haven’t been doing the same. I know better now, I’m _here_ now. And Alex, I’m not going anywhere.” 

 

It’s with those words that she feels, for the first time in a long while, that she can finally breathe. Jeremiah’s disappearance, realizing her feelings for Maggie, the ever-present loom of danger from Lex and Kara’s recurring nightmares-- everything separate in their individual lives becomes easier with the thought of that barrier coming down; and Alex can finally fucking breathe. 

 

/ / 

 

Alex opts to stay in the castle over Easter break in favor of studying for her OWLs. It’s almost unspoken how Maggie stays with her-- though she quickly realizes studying with Maggie is just as distracting as it would be to study in, say, the middle of a crowded food court. 

 

She knows Maggie has a “system” she “strictly keeps to when studying”-- though those are Maggie’s words rather than they are her own and she highly suspects this so-called “system” doesn’t exist at all. 

 

She’s not past the point of begging Maggie to let her explain her own system of flashcards to try to get the other girl to study. She’s met with an eye roll and a, _Okay, I’ll humor you, Danvers,_ and the victory feels better than winning her first Quidditch match. 

 

Houses almost don’t matter in that span of time-- students wearing all colors are seen mingling with others; either fifth-years cramming for their OWLs or seventh-years cramming for their NEWTs or underclassmen wanting tips on how to study for their upcoming OWLs and NEWTs. 

 

More often than not, Maggie would fall asleep in Alex’s dorm, surrounded by an assortment of open textbooks, scattered flashcards, and haphazardly opened snacks. Frequently, Alex would take to passing out on the couch in the Hufflepuff Commons, surrounded by an assortment of pencils broken in frustration, dog-eared notebooks, and scribbled reminders. 

 

She hopes the effort alone is worth something.

 

/ / 

 

“Have some breakfast, Danvers.”

 

Alex shakes her head and takes another sip of orange juice, “Can’t stomach it.”

 

“Half a bagel and I’ll take over your Holiday decoration duties next year,” the Hufflepuff bargains. 

 

Alex pulls a face of disgust and Maggie’s grabbing her shoulders to face her square on, a look of determination on her features. 

 

“You got this, Danvers.” Maggie squeezes her shoulders to cement the words. “You and your big, beautiful brain are going to go in there and kill this thing. Now eat the bagel.”

 

/ / 

 

The two-week period the exams span is easily the most stressful time Alex has ever seen Hogwarts. 

 

The first week starts with their Charms exam then Transfiguration, Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Ancient Runes in the following days. Even though the exams loomed over all since the beginning of the year, Alex spots a few select students spending their nights in the library to prepare for the next day’s exam. 

 

She feels especially great about her practicals for Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts and hopes it covers for lack of confidence towards both the written and practical parts of the Herbology exam. 

 

The weekend between the first week of testing and the second feels almost medicinal in the relief it gives. 

 

The second week, Alex starts off confidently with the Potions test, though she thinks she doesn’t do particularly well with the Bowtruckles in the practical of the Care of Magical Creatures. She finishes the week feeling especially confident in the final History of Magic exam. 

 

After the last test lets out, Kara, Lena, James, and Winn meet Alex and Maggie just outside the testing room with an assortment of fanfare. 

 

“And now it’s only the NEWTs,” Winn provides unhelpfully.

 

“Why are you like this, Winn?” is Maggie’s exasperated reply. 

 

/ / 

 

That night, she and Maggie head up to the Astronomy tower to celebrate their freedom for the rest of the year. 

 

“Which one’s that one?” 

 

Alex looks through the enchanted telescope to the moon Maggie points to.

 

“Callisto.”

 

“Well, crap.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I put it down as Ganymede on the exam.”

 

Alex shrugs, “They do look similar-- with the white spots and all. Ganymede’s larger though.”

 

Alex points up and curves her hand to show the difference, “Largest moon in the solar system, actually.”

 

“Does your brain ever stop working, Danvers?” Maggie says with a fond shake of her head. 

 

“I’m sure you did great on the Herbology exam though. That Bowtruckle at the start of term seemed to like you. I botched it, myself.”

 

“We both know that’s not true.” She moves to sit on the floor, looking up at the open window. Alex joins her with a small shrug. 

 

“So, what now?”

 

Maggie laughs at that. 

 

“What?” she grins. 

 

“It’s been a hot second ever since we got out of that exam room, Danvers, and you’re already trying to plan ahead.” she rocks her body into Alex’s playfully. “Give your big, beautiful brain a rest. Enjoy the view.”

 

Maggie jerks her head to the open window but Alex can’t-- can’t tear her gaze away when the wind picks up and plays with Maggie’s hair, can’t tear her gaze away when Maggie’s form slacks and leans her head against Alex’s shoulders, can’t tear her gaze away from how the moonlight casts an ethereal glow around them. And suddenly, she can’t wait any longer, not when, during this rollercoaster of mystery of a year, she’s been so sure of _one_ thing-- of Maggie. 

 

Maggie turns to her just then, gives her a smile that has her dimples popping out, and Alex is absolutely, irretrievably lost. 

 

She kisses her. The action in and of itself sparks something bigger than the initial feeling. 

 

Every part of her hums with energy, hums with elation, hums with warm electricity that spreads everywhere in her body and Alex swears she’s addicted already. 

 

Then Maggie's kissing her back and she feels something flicker to life inside her. Maggie's hand is coming up to rest under her elbows, and Alex wants to press closer but she’s afraid that Maggie will disappear if she does. It lasts for less than half a minute, but at that moment, she's never felt so alive. At that moment, she’s sure that this, _this,_ is what _happy_ looks like.

 

She’s almost certain that it’s sinful to love a feeling so much. 

 

She kisses her. The action in and of itself sparks something bigger than the initial feeling. 

 

But at the moment, Alex floats above it all-- lost in the warmth and the softness and the unequivocal _magic_ flowing between them-- and it’s all that makes it unbearable when she pulls away.   

 

Because then Maggie's pulling back, and she's saying something about _I didn’t know you were into girls_ and different places and fresh off the boat, but she's saying it all with that smile of hers and Alex can't focus on anything but that smile. She does a good job pretending the words coming from Maggie's lips are the words that she wants to hear. She focuses on that fantasy, but can't stop how she feels her heartbreaking and suddenly, she's snapping back to the moment and properly processing Maggie's words and she wishes and wishes to take it back. 

 

She resorts to running, instead, says goodnight with a hurried, _I’ll see ya,_ and pretends she doesn’t hear when Maggie calls after her, begs her, implores her, _Alex, don’t go._

 

/ / 

 

She’s almost certain Lena can read how she’s feeling, what with that impressive brain of hers, though she’s also sure you didn’t need Legilimency to get a compelling read on what happened on the night at the Astronomy Tower. 

 

Lena tries to talk to her about it but that’s not what Alex wants right now. She isn’t sure what she wants. 

 

But that’s never been a good enough answer for Kara. 

 

“Alex,” she’s knocking on the door. 

 

“Alex, ugh…” she hears her sister mutter a spell and then, “I can see you in there. Let me in, please.”

 

Alex is trying to work her way through a bottle of Muggle liquor some upper-class Slytherin snuck into the castle. Alex doesn’t want to get up. Doesn’t want to let her in. 

 

“Go away, Kara.”

 

She hears Kara mutter an _Alohomora_ and she curses herself for not placing a counter enchantment on the door. 

 

“What’s going on?” Kara demands, making her way to stand in front of Alex. 

 

“Nothing. Nothing is going on. You shouldn’t have come here.”

 

“Well, you haven’t shown up for a meal for two days and you’ve been missing classes. That’s not like you. And Lena said she--” Kara cuts herself off. “I got worried.”

 

“You’re right. I should… I should get to class.”

 

“Wait, wait. Something is clearly wrong.”

 

“Everything is fine,” she assures. She tries to believe her own words.

 

“Alex, what happened?” she’s softer in asking now, a bit gentler. 

 

“I made a mistake, okay? I was wrong. And I shouldn’t have said anything. I should’ve just… kept my mouth shut.”

 

She’s pacing now, keeping a bed in between her and Kara to try and regain some semblance of control. Her head’s foggy from the liquor on her tongue but the dizziness that comes with every step distracts her from a more pressing pain. She welcomes it. 

 

“Alex.” 

 

And then she’s unraveling. 

 

“She doesn’t like me,” a pause. “like that.”

 

Kara’s face falls and she can’t look directly at her because she’s already tearing up and _god, why couldn’t she just stop._

 

She falls back to her bed and Kara’s right there with her, and she’s shaking and sobbing and muttering, and Kara’s shaking her head and, “I’m proud of you.”

 

/ / 

 

She catches Kara near the Great Lake on a Saturday, their last of the school year, her bag laying on the ground near where she sits on the ledge of one of the arches, reading a copy of _The Daily Prophet_ , frown growing deeper with each passing second. 

 

It’s a rather quiet afternoon and the sky hangs heavy over them, dark and grey. 

 

Alex walks over to her sister, swinging her feet as she sits next to Kara. She steals a glance at the headlines. 

 

“Anything interesting?”

 

Kara wordlessly hands the paper over, her movements robotic in nature. 

 

**_Dark Wizards Raid Colony of Centaurs_ **

 

_Having surveilled the wreckage of the work of Dark Wizards in a colony of centaurs, Aurors from the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement find something disturbingly peculiar in the genocide. The centaurs, forest-dwelling creatures coming from a bloodline of their own-- not categorized as half-breeds-- were found affected by a powerful sort of magic that attempted to separating their two parts. This type of scientific approach to magic has never been seen before and specialists are baffled by the findings. cont. pg. 9_

 

The description is enough to make Alex’s stomach churn and the photos accompanying the article almost succeed in making her hurl. She’s at a loss for words, doesn’t know how to answer Kara when her sister asks, “Do you think it’s because of Jeremiah?” 

 

And she’s so focused on schooling her own reactions, on trying to comprehend and wrap her mind around something so disturbingly horrific, that she doesn’t initially see when Kara slams her hands over her ears, rocks to bend over, and starts shivering. 

 

Her sister’s near screaming now, her head in between her knees, and Alex has no idea what to do. 

 

Kara’s shaking, so blindingly taken control of by her most basic biological instinct, and before Alex can reach out to try and help in some way, Kara’s arms fly on the bench beneath them, crushing through the wood as she clenches her fist, her head snaps forward and her eyes slowly glow a hot, burning red before she shuts them tight. 

 

She’s still shaking when Alex reaches for her shoulder. 

 

“Don’t. I’ll hurt you.” 

 

Alex pulls away.

 

“Alex, I’m scared.” 

 

She takes a chance, takes Kara’s hand from where it splintered the wood, and holds it between her own, interlacing their fingers and _fuck, it hurts,_ but she reminds herself it’s nothing unsalvageable and whispers what she hopes is soothing into Kara’s ear as she grips back as tightly as she can. It’s many moments like that until Kara’s grip starts to slack and her eyes dim. 

 

“Kara?” Alex tries. She keeps her voice soft and loosens her grip. Her sister keeps her eyes shut even when the glow disappears. “What the hell was that?” 

 

/ / 

 

She hadn’t known what to do at first. Kara didn’t want to risk opening up in fear she would hurt someone and whenever the panic rose up in her sister, her eyes would grow hot and red once again. Alex knew the first thing she had to do was keep Kara calm-- keep her safe. 

 

Alex had suggested walking back to the castle to get a professor or have more means to figure out what had just happened, but the closer they got to the castle, the more Kara flinched at the increasing noise. 

 

She resorted to the only thing she could think of-- the cave she and Maggie found their first year. She ignored the carving on the wall and lead Kara to the back of the cavern where she left her sister with her sweater to run back to the castle. 

 

And suddenly, Alex was back to the first night she met Kara, the little shivering girl who Apparated into her home with her father, back to when she knew that that strange, alienated girl would change her life. And she knew then, as she sprinted back to Hogwarts with the sky thundering above her, scaling stairs and pushing through groups of people, that with this new obstacle, her world would once again turn upside down and change into something she would have to tackle head-on. 

 

But it was Kara. 

 

And through everything they had been through and everything that’s undoubtedly to come, every change and every hurdle, she knows what she has to do, knows her most basic instinct-- protect her little sister. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there it is! And wow, howdy hey, howdy ho, I'm NOT dead!   
> Come talk to me over on tumblr @superxbat  
> Hope y'all liked it and have an awesome day!


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